Page 119 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
We have seen regular breakdowns in communication with patients. We have seen mismanagement of TB treatment at the Canberra Hospital and the very tragic case of young “DJ” Gill who was sent the bill for a TB test after he had deceased.
We have seen the mismanagement of the first swine flu death in the ACT. We have seen rollovers and delays in capital infrastructure. That is $57 million last year and $50 million this year. There have also been delays in the secure mental health facility that we have been promised in this jurisdiction for years and years. Simon Corbell first promised that five or six years ago and we still do not have it. The bush healing farm and the women and children’s hospital are all over budget, all running late.
We saw the Calvary hospital debacle. We still do not know what we are going to do with health services and hospitals in the north of Canberra. Minister Gallagher wanted to spend $77 million on a public hospital. She wanted to offer up Clare Holland House as a sweetener. If you talk to people around town, what they will tell you is that this minister does not have a clue what she is doing. She is blundering around without a vision about what is going to be delivered in the north of Canberra and what she is going to do when it comes to Calvary hospital.
We have seen the absolute wilful negligence, the covering up, the attacking of doctors, the denials and the appalling situation with the obstetrics department of Canberra Hospital. We have been through this case many times but I—
Mr Seselja: It is still being covered up.
MR HANSON: It has to have been covered up and I actually reviewed some of my comments that I made. In August last year I feared that that would be covered up. I said that in the Hansard. Unfortunately, but probably predictably, that came to be the truth—that it was covered up.
After nine years of Labor and nearly five years of Katy Gallagher, it is quite clear that she is not getting the job done and we want to send the message from the doctors, the patients and the community that this minister has proved utterly ineffective.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Health and Minister for Industrial Relations) (10.15): It will be no surprise to those opposite that I will not be support Jeremy Hanson’s motion today, and I will work through paragraphs (a) to (j) bit by bit. In fact, issues on the second page of the motion are all issues that the Liberals have been bringing here over the past year on numerous occasions and on which they have failed, so the new elements perhaps deserve the most attention. The audit report has made comments which have suggested we have not done enough in terms of increasing access to elective surgery.
I will just make it clear that the government has not responded to the audit report; ACT Health has. And as ACT Health noted in its response, the audit report failed to consider a range of evidence that suggests that such a conclusion is simply not true. No government has invested more to increase access to elective surgery, with $90 million added to the health system over the last seven years. In 2010-11 we will
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video