Page 1516 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 8 May 2018
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
On 3 January this year the headline to an article in the Canberra Times called 2017 in health “a year of calamities”. It went on to suggest that in 2018:
The government will hope some big ticket items will put an at-times tumultuous year in health behind it.
What were these issues that caused last year to be so tumultuous and calamitous? They were things like poor maintenance of ageing infrastructure, the use of aluminium cladding when the government knew that it was dangerous, a fire that caused an emergency evacuation of the hospital, systemic failures in data management and integrity—failures that date back at least six years—and continuing disastrous waiting times in the emergency department and in elective surgery.
The article to which I refer reported that the opposition had accused the minister for health of “not being across her portfolio, citing a number of times when she claimed not to have been briefed on significant issues”. The minister responded by saying:
The very nature of health is that ... as minister I don’t need to know everything that’s happening … I see my role as providing clear priorities for health that reflect what I strongly believe are the priorities of the community.
The minister concluded:
After a year I feel I am across the portfolio.
Madam Speaker, a year and a half into the job, is this Minister for Health and Wellbeing really across her portfolio? Nearly six months into 2018 we are seeing that the improvements the health minister promised in her ministerial statement earlier this year have not materialised.
For example, have we seen reduced waiting times and increased access to our emergency departments and elective surgery? Have we attracted the specialist health staff to our city that we need? Has 2018 seen a turnaround in the tumultuous and calamitous year that was 2017 in Health? The Liberal opposition contest that we have not. What we have is an ACT health system in crisis, perhaps even more than it was last year.
It is a crisis because this minister and this Labor-Greens coalition have allowed it to become so. This is evidenced most recently in the last three or four weeks. We have seen a failed accreditation; allegations of cheating in the accreditation process; maternity patients saying that they are lucky to have survived and have surviving babies; clinical staff having to deal with overcrowding and lack of resources; bullying and poor management; chronic shortages of specialists; emergency department and elective surgery waiting times continuing to worsen; interminable delays in important policy and infrastructure initiatives, including the sudden departure of the former Director-General of ACT Health; systematic bullying throughout the ACT health system; and hospital staff telling patients to complain to the minister if they are not happy.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video