Page 1999 - Week 07 - Thursday, 13 August 2020
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The things that Minister Stephen-Smith rattled off by saying, “We are still doing the things that Katy Gallagher planned”—no they are not, because she had already done those things. The only thing that they have done is something that was not on the plan, which was the University of Canberra rehabilitation hospital. The Canberra Liberals supported the rehabilitation hospital because we recognised that if they were not going to build new hospital beds at the Canberra Hospital it was important to free up those rehabilitation beds to create more flexibility. There were many things about the rehabilitation hospital that we supported. We also do note that what was delivered was less than was originally announced.
I want to go back to the real people, the people who are affected by delays in elective surgery. One of the elements of the government saying, “We are doing better than we did,” is that one of the things that we are not constantly measuring—and despite constant calls for it to be measured more effectively, it is starting to be measured—are the wait times for people to get that first appointment. It was interesting and fortuitous that today there landed in my inbox an answer to a question on notice in relation to paediatric services under COVID-19, which includes a very revealing table. I refer members to the answer to question on notice 2996, which took a long time to answer, by the way, but it is quite revealing.
Mr Rattenbury rattled off the urgency categories: 30 days, 90 days, 365 days, For children under the age of 16, up to 30 June this year, in ear, nose and throat specialisation, we are doing quite well for category 1. They got their first appointment within the approved time of 12 days, on average. The median wait time for initial appointment for a category 2 paediatric ear, nose and throat patient is 383 days. They are supposed to be operated on in 90 days. But it took more than 383 days to get to the front door, to get on the list that says that you are supposed to be operated on in 90 days.
For plastic surgery for children, it is 321 days for category 2 patients to get to the front door. And for category 3 patients it is 720 days, nearly two years, to wait for plastic surgery for a paediatric patient. This could be cleft palate; it could be harelip. Think about it: a child with harelip waiting 720 days to see the doctor to get on the list.
This is what this minister and her predecessors have delivered to the people of the ACT, the children of the ACT. We are not talking about one or two kids. For ear, nose and throat patients, 435 children in the ACT are waiting for category 2 surgery and 568 are waiting for category 3. For plastic surgery, there are 308 children in category 2, 16 in category 3, and 24 in category 1. The category 1s in plastic surgery seem to be working okay.
The trouble is that there are huge numbers of children—there are thousands of children—on this list waiting for appointments. For the most part, we cannot tell how long it is because the information is not available. But the information that is available is terrifying. Because this is a motion about elective surgery, I am not looking at social work, dermatology or endocrinology. I am just talking about the surgical categories here, and they are terrifying.
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