Page 636 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 February 2020
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We should put this in context. The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine has developed a triage system. Category 1 is a resuscitation category, for patients who need treatment immediately for reasons such as they have stopped breathing. Category 2, or the emergency category, is for patients who need treatment within 10 minutes. People in this category include people with severe chest pain, difficulty in breathing or severe fractures.
Category 3, or the urgent category, is for people who need treatment within 30 minutes. This is the largest category of patients who attend accident and emergency. People in this category are suffering from severe illness, are bleeding heavily from cuts, have major fractures or are severely dehydrated. Semi-urgent patients should be seen within an hour, and include patients presenting with a foreign body in the eye, sprained ankles, migraine or earache. Category 5 patients are non-urgent, and they have problems such as minor illnesses. However, I always make the point that one should not denigrate patients who present in category 5, because although they are non-urgent, a great proportion of them are still admitted to hospital for treatment or observation.
Ms Cheyne refers in her MPI to people who need immediate treatment. These people are not always treated in walk-in-centres; they are also treated in emergency departments. It shows, by the narrow casting of this MPI, that Ms Cheyne has a lack of knowledge of how the healthcare system works.
Today’s Canberra Times has a piece on nurse management in our hospital. Mr Daniel from the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation says:
There are instances where rosters for the coming month come out and they’re not even filled to the minimum of the staffing that’s required.
This is a problem that filters all the way through the hospital system and ensures that people do not get the immediate health services that they need. This, amongst other things, shows that our public health system does not have enough nurses to properly service our hospitals. It should be a priority of this government to manage our nursing workforce appropriately. I have said over and over again that our current health system is in crisis. The minister does not believe me. I suggest that, if she does not believe me, she should ask Jon Stanhope.
MS STEPHEN-SMITH (Kurrajong—Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Children, Youth and Families, Minister for Health, Minister for Urban Renewal) (3.32): It is a great pleasure to rise on this matter of public importance today, because nurse-led walk-in-centres have become an integral part of the ACT health system, with the network across Canberra helping people to get fast one-off treatment for minor illnesses and injuries. We know, as Mrs Dunne leaves the chamber, that the Canberra Liberals do not support, and have never supported, walk-in-centres. But we know that Canberrans love them. Canberrans support walk-in-centres, and the feedback we have received about this is overwhelmingly positive.
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