Page 3013 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 15 August 2018
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are ignorant of clinical guidelines and procedures. There are people unwilling to take responsibility for failures.
We have a minister who is more concerned about making motherhood statements than she is about taking action. Therefore, it falls to the Assembly to take the lead. That is why this Assembly should be calling upon the Auditor-General to have a root and branch inquiry into the operation of what is clearly a dysfunctional medical imaging department in the ACT hospital system. I commend the motion to the Assembly.
MS FITZHARRIS (Yerrabi—Minister for Health and Wellbeing, Minister for Transport and City Services and Minister for Higher Education, Training and Research) (5.49): I welcome the opportunity to clarify for the Assembly the circumstances surrounding training at the radiology department at the Canberra Hospital. I would note—and I will reflect on this and take some advice, Madam Speaker, and, of course, being respectful of the right of everyone in this place to speak freely—that Mrs Dunne has done what I have not observed in my time in this place, and has made very specific mention of a very specific official. I would remind her that the freedom of speech which we all enjoy should be exercised very responsibly, particularly when it comes to our public officials, our public servants, and what I believe might well be one side of the story.
As I have said previously, and as I outlined during question time yesterday when Mrs Dunne asked me a question about radiology accreditation for training, I detailed a number of steps that ACT Health have taken. Far from being motherhood statements, they were direct examples of the numerous steps that ACT Health has taken, particularly since March, when the college undertook its accreditation preliminary assessment. I can provide advice to the Assembly that, as I indicated earlier today, as with many departments, the relevant colleges of radiologists accredit departments to undertake training. The preliminary accreditation report by the college related to an assessment of the training program, and that assessment did lead to downgrading the status of the training accreditation.
It is important to point out again that this has been entirely separate from the broader accreditation of Canberra Hospital and Health Services against the 10 national safety and quality health service standards. There are always a number of accreditation processes that hospitals and health departments go through. With respect to the most significant—and this is why I will not be supporting Mrs Dunne’s motion today to request that you, Madam Speaker, refer this to the Auditor-General—an independent accreditation process, a very thorough one, has recently been undertaken in the same time frames.
I will read out again later, for the benefit of Mrs Dunne and for the benefit of all members in this place—and I really do invite her to listen to this—the feedback about some of the turnarounds in ACT Health over the past three months. I note, of course, that the original accreditation by the royal Australian college of radiologists was undertaken in March. As we have noted in discussions about accreditation, the re-accreditation process—which I am advised was a planned accreditation by the college, which refutes Mrs Dunne’s earlier claims—is always an opportunity for
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