Page 2668 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
What the minister made in this Assembly was incorrect statements. That may happen. It could have been inadvertent. But she has had a week in which to correct those statements and she refuses. She stands by her mislead. It is not about the management of the list. It is not about a medical opinion. It is not about how long the lists are, although that, of course, is part of her responsibility as well.
The question was: do doctors from ACT Health ask surgeons to request that surgeons downgrade the category of their patients? The minister denied it. Remember her words “not to my knowledge”, “never, ever”, “unlikely”, “not in accordance with the policy”. Yet we have it from Dr Ashman that they do. Yes, there are paragraphs that Ms Bresnan has pointed out in the section in the document entitled “Current Problem” but the line which stands on its own and does not need any qualifier is simply this:
Many surgeons resist or refuse requests to downgrade the category even when it is obvious that the condition has been inappropriately categorised.
It is not about inappropriate categorisation. It is about whether or not they have been asked. They make requests. The doctors confirmed that they do make requests.
The minister refuses to accept that the staff of ACT Health in the hospital are making these requests. That is the whole point. She said it. She said “not to my knowledge”, “never, ever”, “unlikely”, “not in accordance”. She said at one stage they were not even contacting surgeons. But the reality, from Dr Ashman’s own words, is that the problem is that they refuse these requests. The requests are made. The mislead stands.
It is not up to us to make medical opinions in this place but it is up to the minister to show leadership and to be honest with this Assembly. And in this case the minister has not been honest. The minister has misled and continues to mislead. When asked to confirm it, when we had a motion on the Wednesday, the minister came down to this place and said, “Of course, there are some letters that detail the process we go through.” She was very nervous about it.
She forgot to tell the Assembly about the proposed draft policy. The draft policy is there to confirm that which is already going on, that which the minister has denied in this place, that which the minister has said does not happen. And yet we clearly know from Dr Ashman’s own words that it does happen.
I take to task what Ms Bresnan says where Ms Bresnan says you have got to try to put it into context and read the entire section. But at the end of the day the question to the minister was:
Minister, would you consider it appropriate or in accordance with policy that ACT Health would be contacting doctors to ask that they downgrade their patients?
Do they do that?
Ms Gallagher: And they are not doing that. No.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video