Page 3762 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 19 September 2018
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To reiterate, the independent review that I have proposed will be one of learning and healing and looking at how we can address any systemic issues in a meaningful way. It will not be a witch-hunt or a mechanism to publicly scrutinise only a small portion of our workforce. The independent review will be about the entire ACT Health workforce. All staff across the workforce have a right to feel safe, supported and heard during this review process, regardless of the position they hold.
The government is committed to moving forward quickly with an independent review and working in a meaningful way to improve the culture within ACT Health public services. It is about the health of our workforce, the health of our system and ultimately the health of our community.
As I have said, I have always been honest with the Canberra community that there are challenges we face in Health and that there are some things that must be fixed. And I have got on with the job of addressing these issues while at the same time delivering on the government’s commitments to deliver high quality healthcare.
I wish to close by providing you with some additional words provided to me by a professional association this week. I hope these words resonate with the opposition and indeed anyone listening to this debate today. They say:
There are many dedicated, passionate leaders within ACT Health, clinical and administrative, who are ready to take up the challenge of ensuring positive culture reform and a sustainable, appropriately resourced health system now and into the future.
They need to be recognised and empowered to get on with the task. With growth and change comes risk. And no matter how much risk assessment, there will be failures.
With failure comes opportunity to learn and improve, build and reform, ultimately to excel. This must remain the focus.
MR HANSON (Murrumbidgee) (11.12): I commend Mrs Dunne not only for bringing this motion to the Assembly today but for the outstanding work that she is doing in standing up for the staff who ultimately are the victims of bullying within the system. I know that Mrs Dunne cares passionately about that and I absolutely reject the assertion from the minister that this is anything other than a concern that Mrs Dunne and the opposition share for the countless victims of bullying within ACT Health. To characterise this as otherwise is disingenuous and is a smear not just on us but on the hundreds of doctors represented by the AMA, the salaried medical officers and the visiting medical officers that have called for this inquiry as a result of what they see at the front line, the coalface, of the health service.
It is also important that we go to this motion after the concerns that I have following yesterday’s question time, when a series of legitimate and important questions were, at best, characterised, I think, as ducking and an inability to provide details by the minister about this serious issue. For those watching, for those listening to question time yesterday, it would send a chill down the spine of every member in the health
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