Page 3661 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 21 November 2007
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some outcomes. It is a bit like what you do, Mr Deputy Speaker. You keep on and on about urban services and so forth. If we do not then we are held to account; that is our job.
We have a trial system in the emergency department that still sees people waiting for upwards of eight hours, and people leaving after hours of not being seen, out of sheer frustration. People are in dreadful pain; they have to take children back the following day. And it goes on and on. It is infuriating to be told that there are acceptable occurrences at the hospital, and to have these complaints wiped off as being some sort of whingeing from me. It is disgraceful. Recently, as we all know, there was a fatality at the emergency department. The point has been made that, since the abolition of hospital boards across the country, hospitals have now adopted management processes that are removed from what local communities need.
This morning the minister said that the boards are old-fashioned or, “We don’t do things like this any more, Mrs Burke.” She has no answer about the continued flow of problems involving people experiencing less than optimal care in our public hospitals—and no more so than at the Canberra Hospital. Management needs to reflect the local community and be close to the local community, and I do not think that is occurring right now. I think we have moved away.
From what the opposition is hearing in letters, emails and phone calls from constituents, patients, doctors, nurses and people on the street, this does not seem to be the case. What this government is trying to tell us and sell to the community is not bearing weight. Why aren’t people coming to me and saying: “You are so wrong, Mrs Burke. You’ve got it all wrong. The health system is perfect. Canberra Hospital is wonderful”? If they are saying that then I would stand in this place and say so, but they are not. No-one in their right mind would ever question the commitment and professionalism of ACT’s health workforce in delivering high-quality services.
Ms Gallagher: You do it every single day.
MRS BURKE: This health minister continually asserts that what I am doing is wrong and incorrect. You are trying to deflect the problems that you cannot fix.
Ms Gallagher: I thought you were going to name people, Mrs Burke.
MRS BURKE: You have not built yourself up to be the leader in health that you said you were going to be.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Mrs Burke, please address your remarks through the chair. Ms Gallagher, if you need to take a point of order, please do so, but let us minimise the straight-out interjecting.
MRS BURKE: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; you are quite right. But it is very infuriating because the government like to twist and manipulate what you say, and you know that only too well. I think it is absolutely appalling for the health minister continually to assert that I am pulling down nurses and doctors. It is a cheap shot to try and deflect from the fact that she is not coping; that she, as health minister, is not delivering the outcomes that we need in this territory.
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