Page 3965 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 25 November 2014
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Again, here is one I got this week. “I note that in today’s Canberra Times the front page and letters page feature adverse publicity for the Canberra Hospital. For what it is worth, in the middle of last week I wrote a letter to the editor praising the Canberra Hospital concerning my experience with the hospital and with hospital in the home and the health service. The letter has not appeared, and when I rang on Thursday last week I was told it was under consideration. On Friday night my 89-year-old grandmother was admitted to your emergency department. She is an Italian immigrant born in 1924.” And the stories go on.
Mr Hanson: Read the one you got from—
MS GALLAGHER: I am not denying there are complaints, Mr Hanson, as you constantly interject and talk over the good work of the hospital. And I never have. Go and read the Sunday paper, where I accepted that there are complaints. What you need to do is to address the complaints. But what you need to do, Mr Hanson, is provide balance—balance and perspective on the health system. And we have a health system that is second to none in this city. (Time expired.)
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Hanson.
MR HANSON: Minister, what are you doing to address the specific concerns of those patients mentioned in these reports?
MS GALLAGHER: The health system is a complex system where complaints, when they are raised, are responded to. And I know, from the side that I sit on and the role I play across government, that they are an extremely responsive department in relation to customer complaints and feedback. I would also say that 70 per cent of the feedback they get is positive. I do not think there is any acknowledgement by you, Mr Hanson, of that reality. You come in here and you cite four instances which you try to paint the entire system by.
Mr Hanson: Many others.
MS GALLAGHER: There are others. I agree: there are others. Thirty per cent of the feedback we get will either have a comment about improving processes or have a concern about care. But 70 per cent is positive. And every single day, that hospital saves lives. Every single day they save lives. They turn up to work. How do you think they feel when it is a matter of political football about the quality of care? Nothing makes the opposition happier than a negative story about the health system. We all see it. We see you walk in here with a spring in your step because you have got a complaint about the health system that you can run.
Mr Hanson: It is not about me; it is about the patients.
MS GALLAGHER: It is about you, Mr Hanson; it is all about you and your political campaign. Let us not forget that; let us not try and dress it up in anything else.
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