Page 4033 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 26 November 2014
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the evidence that has been provided. He has essentially caught up with Katy, had a cup of tea, and they have stitched up that they will not provide the information that is needed.
I remind Mr Rattenbury that the article we have seen in the Canberra Times about the clinical report from the royal college says:
The unit is significantly at risk—
I say again—
The unit is significantly at risk of both adverse medical outcomes and personal risks to the health and wellbeing of the registrars.
Mr Rattenbury is happy to say, “Oh, well, we don’t need to worry about this. We don’t need to see this report. I’m happy that this is all ongoing.” Can you imagine for a moment, Madam Speaker, if I were the health minister and Mr Rattenbury were responding to a motion that had been put forward by Ms Gallagher? I can imagine the mock outrage we would hear from him. I can imagine him banging on the table, demanding scrutiny and saying how unacceptable this was. Mr Rattenbury is again simply the patsy of this government. As long as this member gets light rail and the other little bits of sugar he wants, he will do anything to support this government.
What he is doing here is letting down the ACT community, and he is letting down the doctors, the nurses and the staff who have come forward wanting resolution, wanting this to come to light. They have not gone to the media and the opposition lightly. They have not provided reports to the media lightly. And we are seeing Mr Rattenbury letting down those staff and ultimately letting down the patients.
Turning to Ms Gallagher’s comments, I stated that in the period when this was raised in 2009-10, 13 doctors resigned. She denied that and went on to say that nine resigned in 2009 and four in 2010. For the benefit of the health minister, nine plus four is 13—13 doctors resigning in that period is a lot and is abnormal. The point made at the time by the president of the royal college was that in many cases these were registrars. These are people who basically said, “This is too much. I’m getting out of this.” They walked away from their training; they walked away from their specialisation as doctors because things were so bad.
My motion, which will be watered down by this amendment from the health minister, asked what action the minister was taking. She has deferred that to the staff. She has said, “Oh, we’ll just find out what the hospital is going to do.” This was the approach last time. The minister has no accountability, takes no responsibility: “That’s Health’s problem.” She said this last time and she keeps saying it. The issue for me is that this has to be something that managers at the hospital and managers at Health deal with. The minister says, “Not my problem.”
What has Dr Brown said? She said staff and the ACT community need to allow ACT Health the time and opportunity to resolve the issues. Well, it has been 14 years, according to Katy Gallagher. How long do we need? Another four years? How long is reasonable after 14 years of war, as Katy Gallagher says, in maternity?
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