13 December 2011

Alarming alleged anecdote used to complain about the health system

| johnboy
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The Liberals Jeremy Hanson is jumping up and down about a story on the radio today:

“Today, we learnt of a post-surgery case at The Canberra Hospital in which staff allegedly did not change a patient?s wound dressing, which then led to emergency surgery to treat the problem,” Mr Hanson said today.

“The patient was allegedly refused treatment from a doctor, forcing the patient?s wife to outsource a doctor from Calvary who immediately ordered further surgery to save the man?s leg.

“This is a catastrophic breakdown of hospital management and the public needs to know what went wrong so it doesn’t happen again.

“I call on Katy Gallagher to conduct an open investigation into this incident as a matter of urgency.

“No more secret investigations, now?s the time for the Chief Minister to step up and take responsibility for the health system?s failings or forever lose all credibility in the management of her Portfolio.

“I reiterate the patient?s wife?s comment on radio this morning: “Katy Gallagher, she was Chief Minister, she was Health Minister, do your job.’

“It?s cases like this that show why the Canberra Liberals have pushed ACT Labor on its health failings, which have seen Canberra?s health system become the worst in the country across a number of important performance measures over its ten years in government,” Mr Hanson concluded.

But the question remains un-answered, what would the good Colonel do differently?

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A close friend of mine is to off to Sydney for surgery later this week, because it’s ‘not available’ in Canberra. Pretty poor, I reckon.

the health sistem clearly needs money….so who owns the money? probably not those “occupy” people because they don’t have a clear policies or are they the only people without a friend in the media sphere?

I’m still scared anyway. I would rather rely upon giant corporations who are legally bound to put profit over civic duty and so direct public health policy in a friendly and understandable way such as we are used too.

It’s not exactly what the good Colonel would do. It’s the staff – they should do their job! Of course there are going to be lazy and untrained staff in any profession, but for this guy to have a wound untreated for days is simply a case of appalling neglect.

Now I accept that Canberra Hospital staff are over worked and busy. Granted. But how long does it take to attend to changing a wound dressing. 15 minutes maximum? I’m no nurse, but they would teach this in 1st year (correct me if I’m wrong).

Any investigation should find those who were responsible and sack them. This bloke could have died.

But the question remains un-answered, what would the good Colonel do differently?

Stop listening to the radio, for a start.

“It?s cases like this that show why the Canberra Liberals have pushed ACT Labor on its health failings, which have seen Canberra?s health system become the worst in the country across a number of important performance measures over its ten years in government,” Mr Hanson concluded.

Does the above paragraph sound to anyone else like Mr Hanson has been pushing ACT Labor to make the hospitals as bad as possible?

Waiting For Godot4:12 pm 13 Dec 11

Everybody knows – especially in a city like Canberra – that if the Liberals get in they will have exactly the same bureaucrats and health workers that are in place now. So nothing will change. There might be some reformist zeal in the early days but everything will quickly resort to the old ways. Just look at NSW since the Libs got in. There were no wholesale sackings of bureaucrats so everything just continued as before, especially in the health system.

Yeah, go get’em, Jeremy – everybody knows how much more priority the Libs put on health, education and services, so your stunt is entirely credible.

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