Page 2824 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 14 August 2018
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So the ACT health system will continue unabated on its bullying way. Its hierarchical, siloed structure will continue. In fact, it will worsen when the directorate is split in October. Its top-heavy, protect-its-own bureaucracy will continue to deliver its edicts from on high. Its process-driven, impossible and unnavigable system will continue and possibly worsen. It will continue to build its mountains of policy to underpin its bureaucratic processes that are not patient centred and will probably get worse. It will continue to put staff last on its list of priorities. It will continue to make it impossible for staff to air their grievances for fear of reprisal. The ACT health system will continue to ignore the succinct advice of Sir Richard Branson to treat your staff how you would like to be treated.
I have spent quite a lot of time in this speech talking about the culture within the ACT health system and the hospital system in particular. I have done this because I cannot understate the importance of this issue. Let me summarise it this way. If a good and positive culture can be promoted through the ACT health system, one that is respectful and willing to listen and act, we will say goodbye to the dysfunctional system that we have today. We will welcome a culture in which, to paraphrase Sir Richard Branson, taxpayers get value for their taxes, patients do better and staff remain happy.
I will continue to accept and act on stories about bullying and harassment in the ACT health system. I will continue to raise awareness of the negative impact it has on our front-line people who are expected to care for the people of Canberra professionally but without proper support. This issue is not going away—not until this Labor-Greens government coalition sits up and takes notice. Given their record, however, I am not holding my breath.
In the time remaining, I will touch on some of the issues that continue to fester in the ACT health system. Canberra Hospital is old and it continues to break down. It has been put to me that there are places in Canberra Hospital where if you turn on an electric hair dryer something will blow. Last year we had a small but serious fire in the main electrical switchboard in building 2. It was necessary to evacuate the building. Non-mobile patients were carried down the fire stairs, elective surgeries were put on hold and the emergency department was bypassed.
This Labor-Greens coalition had known about the state of the switchboard for years. It had been reported over and over, and they had done nothing. They had even got so far as putting out a request for tender, which miraculously was finalised days after the switchboard fire. The tender to fix the switchboard is publicly stated as reaching $10 million. But we know that that there are now other works that have to be done in this space that were not originally identified.
We do not know how much the final outcome will be, because the government will not tell us. Initially I was told they could not tell us because it was commercial-in-confidence. But, when pressed, they said it was because they had not actually worked out the scope of the works and the costing for that work had not been finalised. It would have been useful if I had been told the right story the first time. We have a major assets upgrade program and I have not got a straight answer on the
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