Page 3336 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 14 November 2007
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There are system glitches, and they have been acknowledged by the Chief Minister. They are not being resolved. We need an inquiry to get to the bottom and the heart of the matter, just like those opposite wanted an inquiry when they were in opposition in regard to disability services. It is no different. There were very good people working in disability services. There were very good stakeholder groups giving advice to the government of the day, but we still had an inquiry.
The AMA, most annoyingly for the government, put paid to the stock excuses of this inept government. The national President of the AMA, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, stated in a radio interview on 2CC with Mike Jeffreys on 29 October that the AMA has looked at claims that too many people are in hospital beds who should not be and that too many patients are in emergency departments who should not be—among the Stanhope government’s favourite excuses—and has found that this is absolutely not the case. Dr Capolingua said that the claim that there are too many people in hospital beds who should not be there is, in actual fact, not the case. She said that, sure, we need more transition, step-down and aged care beds, but that the people who are in hospital are sick and need to be there.
Dr Capolingua also said that the excuse or claim that there are too many people in emergency departments who should not be there is not true. She went on to say that a very, very small percentage of those patients could have been managed in general practice if there had been an opportunity for them to go there. I emphasise—a small number. We have seen, of course, that there would be more GPs on board, but this lot opposite cannot get their act together in terms of overseas-trained doctors coming to Canberra. We have heard the weak defence from the acting health minister saying that they are wrong; Dr Thinus van Rensburg up in Mr Stefaniak’s electorate is wrong. Everybody lies, but this government is supposedly all right. This is an absolute insult to the community—an absolute insult.
In recent months I and my colleagues have called for reform of the Canberra public hospitals. We want to see an overhaul of management. This is staggering, but the Chief Minister himself agrees that they need to investigate the systemic issues. Why not use an inquiry under the Inquiries Act to do that? Obviously, the Chief Minister is not afraid of stuff coming out into the open. What is the health minister afraid of? Again, I do not think she can stand the pressure; she cannot stand the heat; she is not up to the job.
Dr Capolingua touched on the subject of the administration of the public hospital system saying that it is a sad state of affairs that you have to put shame and blame back onto the state government administration of hospitals. She said this is really about hospital management and the philosophy of constraint and holding back, rather than the delivery of services. She referred to some arenas where, quite clearly, there is what they call the closing of beds and opening of desks—in other words, becoming very heavy with bureaucrats and administration rather than doctors and nurses and infrastructure and service delivery. Dr Capolingua said that you cannot treat patients on desks, and that is, indeed, right.
Indeed, a leading Canberra doctor highlighted just this very situation in October. Dr Peter Collignon, when speaking on ABC radio’s breakfast show on 9 October,
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