Page 3377 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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I have to acknowledge that some of the responses from government in relation to this matter have seemed to exacerbate the family’s private grief. The coronial process has been complicated by the fact that confirmation of the individual’s swine flu status—and this matter is, I think, public—was made post mortem. The matter was then, and is now, before the coroner, and the coroner will quite rightly determine the individual’s cause of death in the course of the coroner’s inquiry.
With regard to the comments attributed to me in the Canberra Times, may I give members a bit of background? I responded to a call late in the afternoon from the police reporter from the Canberra Times. He clearly had a level of information about this individual when he approached both ACT Health and my office. I am not aware of how that information came to that reporter from the Canberra Times. Certainly it did not come from my office or from ACT Health.
In the course of my discussion with this journalist I became particularly concerned at a line of questioning that this was such a significant public health matter that ACT Health and I, as the minister, had to be clear that we were not keeping information from the public. I mentioned to that journalist that there had been no confirmed case of a swine flu death at that point, which was, I think, 31 July. I also raised concerns with him about distress that could be caused to families by pre-emptive stories when the complete information was not available to any of us at that point in time.
However, throughout this swine flu pandemic I have been very mindful of the need to balance information that may come to me in my role as minister, whether it be through the Chief Health Officer or through the hospital, and the need to keep the public informed and keep public trust in the processes used by ACT Health in managing the pandemic. In that sense I was keen to not have a story or a view expressed that we were trying to hide something from the Canberra community by not confirming whether or not investigations were taking place.
In normal situations, when a matter is before the coroner, ACT Health would simply not comment. We just would not comment. We would say that that matter is before the coroner and there is no comment. And I have to say that in future, as a result of the distress that has been caused to this family, I, as minister, and ACT Health officials will just maintain that line, that if it is before the coroner, there is no comment from ACT Health at all, and just leave it at that. I think the fact that we did say, in response to questions from the Canberra Times, that tests were underway actually started the distress that the family ultimately has expressed through the media.
So the story did run in the Canberra Times on that day and was picked up, obviously, by radio stations throughout the day. I then appeared before the media, I think, at 11.30 the next morning—so that would have been 1 April—at a scheduled event where I, again, was asked repeatedly about the status of this individual’s result. Again, with the benefit of hindsight, my answer should have been that this is a matter before the coroner and I have no further comment to make.
However, I did have in my possession verbal advice that the H1N1 status had been confirmed and, again, in balancing the public interest and the needs of the community,
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