Page 2805 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 12 August 2015
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That was a quote from my budget reply last year. Sadly we are in this place again debating a sick health system and again we are seeing the same problems. Again we are hearing the same excuses.
The problems in this health system are deep rooted and the damage that has been done by the ACT Labor government since 2011 is extensive. The minister has been the minister prior, but just since this minister was appointed on 20 January we have seen endless problems coming out of the health system. We have seen a whole series of reports that are a damning indictment of this government. We have seen the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports, the National Health Performance Authority report, the MyHospital reports, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons audit report, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists accreditation report—we have not actually seen those two: the government will not release them; we just know they are dreadful—the AMA public hospital report card and the ACT Auditor-General’s data management report.
Across the board what we have seen since this minister has taken over is a worsening continuation of what was happening before—a degradation. It started two days after he was appointed, when the ACT government refused to release results of staff surveys from the troubled Centenary Hospital for Women and Children. As was reported by the ABC on that day, ACT Health has been plagued by reports of a bullying culture in its maternity department.
We found out a few weeks later, on 24 February, that the hospital’s obstetrics department had failed to get proper, full accreditation. RANZCOG, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, had only extended that training for a further six months. Again we saw serious concerns being raised in reports by the Canberra Times about bullying and staffing arrangements.
On 27 March there were concerns raised in the media again about the overcrowded ED and stressed staff and comments that the plan to resolve overcrowding at the Canberra Hospital’s emergency department “has been slammed”—and this is a quote from the ABC—“as lacking intellectual rigour and being dismissive of contrary opinion”. Staff at the Canberra Hospital reported close to 28 people waiting for treatment at one time and some being treated in nursing corridors. The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation ACT representative, Jenny Miragaya, said that the hospital moved to code yellow status on multiple occasions, which represents an internal disaster. She said that the staff in the emergency department are under a huge amount of stress because of this.
We saw in April the issue of the cut in hospital beds and then the attempted cover-up by this minister where 200 beds that were promised by this government for the subacute hospital were reduced to 140. This minister came out in the most convoluted fashion and tried to explain where these beds had gone. We still do not know what a bed is. This minister refuses to define it. Indeed the estimates committee, in one of its recommendations, said:
The Committee recommends that the Health Directorate produce and use a standard table of definitions of ‘bed’ including definitions of acute, subacute, non-acute, and overnight and day beds, in-patient and out-patient beds, bed spaces and traditional and non-traditional beds.
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