Page 956 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 March 2019
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It is not surprising to us that what we heard from the Minister for Health and Wellbeing was a series of extracts from various ministerial statements that we have heard over the past little while, cobbled together in such a way as to be a justification for her performance. In doing so, the minister perpetuated what she has been doing all the time. “Look how much money we are spending; look at the investment,” she said. “Look at the number of admissions,” she said. “Look at the number of surgeries that are being done. These are some of the ways that I’m performing as the minister for health.”
This is not how Minister Fitzharris is performing as the minister for health. These things are happening in spite of Minister Fitzharris. The staff are performing. The staff are doing their jobs. The staff are going above and beyond. The staff are doing double shifts. The staff, in spite of being disrespected, in spite of all the things that were dragged out into the open through the Reid report, are doing their job.
What we had today was an attempt at victim blaming from the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. She likes to say that we on this side never say anything nice about the health system. Actually, that is not true. We spend our time upholding the staff, the people who work there and the great services that are provided. All of us here, in our way, are consumers of health services. We have not only our legislative responsibility but our own personal responsibility to see that we have a great health service.
We spend our time upholding the staff. That is why I have spent the past two years talking about bullying and harassment, because the staff talk to us about bullying and harassment, because the staff are at the end of their tether, and because the staff have nowhere else to go, because this minister does not care.
This minister does not care. As a result we have a situation where the minister had nowhere else to go. The AMA has publicly called for a board of inquiry into the culture of the hospital system. The minister can dismiss what the Liberal opposition says as just a political stunt. That is what she did. They said it was too expensive and that this was just a political stunt.
When the AMA and other doctor organisations and other health organisations say, “Hang on, enough is enough; we really do need to have this inquiry,” the minister for health had nowhere else to go. She was dragged kicking and screaming to instituting an inquiry. I do not resile from my view that, had it not been for the Liberal opposition talking about this for a very long time, and being talked to by distraught, disgruntled, unhappy—and sometimes ex-members of the health service, because they could not work there any longer—this would all still be under the carpet.
The minister did not want this review. She did not want this inquiry. She did not want to see it brought out into the public. And now she is trying to make the best of it that she possibly can. But she has never once apologised and said, “I was wrong. There haven’t been respectful pathways. And even if I personally have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment”—and I hope that she does—“I have not done anything to ensure that that happens in the hospitals.”
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