Page 3330 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 14 November 2007

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have been forthcoming. Problems in our health system and our hospitals are an indictment of our public healthcare system in this rich nation and this rich city. People are sick of excuses as to why they cannot be fixed. If it was good enough for the current government, when in opposition, to initiate in the Assembly an inquiry into those sad deaths of people in disability care, then it is good enough to initiate an inquiry into our hospital system.

The Gallop inquiry led to significant improvements in the provision of services for disability care. It led to a number of reforms being made. Surely that is what we want to see—an independent inquiry chaired by an independent person in accordance with the terms of reference, who will go out there, see what is what and make recommendations as to how it can be fixed. The opposition and the community are sick of the excuses of this government. We believe that there is no excuse for the government to refuse an inquiry into the public hospital system in the ACT.

MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Minister for Health, Minister for Disability and Community Services and Minister for Women) (11.20): I welcome the opportunity to talk again about the public health system here in the ACT. What we have seen this morning from Mr Stefaniak is yet another attack on our health system from the opposition. It is another attack on medical staff. In fact, Mr Stefaniak made several references to the quality of medical care being provided at the hospital. As Mr Stefaniak would know, the medical care being provided at our hospitals is being provided by doctors and nurses. So you cannot, on the one hand, say this is not about attacking doctors and nurses and then attack the quality of medical care. We could all come in here and read letters—I could read a number of letters that I get from people who have come through the hospital system and had a wonderful experience with the hospital system. I look at it as just a tactic to stand there and read out a longwinded, obviously complex experience that a patient has had.

There are over 100,000 cost-weighted separations and 70,000 admissions to our public hospitals every year. As the acting health minister said, a health system deals with sick people, and sometimes we do not get it right for them. At times, the system does not get it right, and the system changes when those cases are reviewed. That is what we need. The system obviously deals with a group within our population who attend a hospital for one reason—usually because they are sick—and when the system does not work for them, we fix it. That is the system that we have put in place at the public hospitals. That is the process that we have in place—that is, to make sure that the system responds when experiences are bad or when the standard of care being provided is not what it should have been.

We have here a motion from the opposition seeking an inquiry. They are trying to create a scandal. They are trying to create a scandal where they have not been able to find one themselves. When we have asked for proof of all these problems that they know of in the health system, we have Mrs Burke tabling her own media releases. That is the only proof that Mrs Burke—

Mrs Burke: Because I am not required to table anything, and you know that. You have to like it or lump it. You know I’m telling the truth.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mrs Burke.


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