Mr HENDERSON - 2000-02-29
I have been contacted by a Gove resident who was flown to Darwin on Monday 31st January this year for admission to Royal Darwin Hospital for an uncontrolled infection. He arrived at Accident and Emergency at 7.30pm and was finally admitted to a ward at 4.00am the following morning, 8 hours later. He says people were lying out in the corridor and flowing out into the ambulance area. Some patients gave up and left before seeing a doctor. Conditions at the Accident and Emergency Department are unacceptable. What are you going to do now, and I repeat ‘now’, to improve these deplorable conditions for patients and the long suffering staff?
ANSWER
Unbelievable, Mr Speaker. We have a situation where a patient has been flown from Gove to Royal Darwin Hospital, we picked up the whole cost of that. We would have picked up the cost associated with their presentation at the Gove District Hospital, they would have been assessed when they got to Accident and Emergency and they would have been assessed, importantly, along with various other people who were in Accident and Emergency and requiring attention. Now, the important thing is not to put them in a queue and treat them chronologically, the important thing is to treat them on the basis of acuity. So the trick that is performed in Accident and Emergency is to make sure that those who are most needy of medical attention receive it, and that is called a triage system. The member for Casuarina again could attest to the speed that is deployed in the event that someone is in a life threatening situation, and it is my assumption that the patient who attended Accident and Emergency at Royal Darwin, from Gove, was perhaps not in this situation, which is why perhaps they were able to be referred, while other more serious patients were attended to.
It is true that from time to time, the hospital is immensely busy, and it is true that from time to time we approach and even exceed 100% through factors that are beyond our control. If you have a look at the capacity for the hospital to be able to look to some other factors to manage this, there are not as many as there are for its sister hospitals in other places, where they can defer to a neighbouring hospital, they can have an assumption that people with private insurance will go to private hospitals ...
Ms Martin: But what are you doing about it? Stop making excuses and do something.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr DUNHAM: This is not an excuse. I’m quite happy to debate this matter because I think it is immensely important. The nub of the question is: what is the minister going to do about Accident and Emergency. Now, this has been answered on many occasions, in this House and the member for Wanguri was even given a briefing on this issue. He was given a briefing on Accident and Emergency. He was given a briefing that told him how the program would step out. He knows that there is capital money available this year, he knows that the matter has been discussed with those who have some dealings with Accident and Emergency.
We call this consultation. We consult them to make sure that we don’t end up with the very beast that we’ve got there. The reason we’ve got a hospital like Royal Darwin with its design inefficiencies is because we were in a position where we didn’t have this parliament, we weren’t consulted with and we were given an inappropriate facility. Well, I don’t want that to happen for Accident and Emergency. I want to make sure that when we build our new Accident and Emergency - and there is funding in this year’s budget - it is appropriate for the hospital, it is appropriate for the clientele that we have, and that it is state-of-the-art. Now, this has been conveyed to the member for Wanguri in a briefing with senior departmental people, and he knows it well.
What he is attempting to do is trapeze in and somehow say through his latter and contemporary efforts that he has somehow secured out of this government a new accident and emergency facility. Too late. Too dumb. It is not going to happen, because this thing has been on the books for some time. He has had no role in it. His lobbying has been a clumsy attempt to try and convey to people that somehow without his efforts this thing would not have happened. Well I can tell you that the lack of support of the Labor Party at Royal Darwin Hospital and the Accident Emergency is well known to everybody.
Mr STIRLING: A point of Order, Mr Speaker! I would just like to direct the Minister for Police’s attention, the fact that the Member for Araluen is in fact in this House. Last week the Centralian Advocate reported that the ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order!. There is no point of order.
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: One more outburst like that and you are out for an hour.
ANSWER
Unbelievable, Mr Speaker. We have a situation where a patient has been flown from Gove to Royal Darwin Hospital, we picked up the whole cost of that. We would have picked up the cost associated with their presentation at the Gove District Hospital, they would have been assessed when they got to Accident and Emergency and they would have been assessed, importantly, along with various other people who were in Accident and Emergency and requiring attention. Now, the important thing is not to put them in a queue and treat them chronologically, the important thing is to treat them on the basis of acuity. So the trick that is performed in Accident and Emergency is to make sure that those who are most needy of medical attention receive it, and that is called a triage system. The member for Casuarina again could attest to the speed that is deployed in the event that someone is in a life threatening situation, and it is my assumption that the patient who attended Accident and Emergency at Royal Darwin, from Gove, was perhaps not in this situation, which is why perhaps they were able to be referred, while other more serious patients were attended to.
It is true that from time to time, the hospital is immensely busy, and it is true that from time to time we approach and even exceed 100% through factors that are beyond our control. If you have a look at the capacity for the hospital to be able to look to some other factors to manage this, there are not as many as there are for its sister hospitals in other places, where they can defer to a neighbouring hospital, they can have an assumption that people with private insurance will go to private hospitals ...
Ms Martin: But what are you doing about it? Stop making excuses and do something.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr DUNHAM: This is not an excuse. I’m quite happy to debate this matter because I think it is immensely important. The nub of the question is: what is the minister going to do about Accident and Emergency. Now, this has been answered on many occasions, in this House and the member for Wanguri was even given a briefing on this issue. He was given a briefing on Accident and Emergency. He was given a briefing that told him how the program would step out. He knows that there is capital money available this year, he knows that the matter has been discussed with those who have some dealings with Accident and Emergency.
We call this consultation. We consult them to make sure that we don’t end up with the very beast that we’ve got there. The reason we’ve got a hospital like Royal Darwin with its design inefficiencies is because we were in a position where we didn’t have this parliament, we weren’t consulted with and we were given an inappropriate facility. Well, I don’t want that to happen for Accident and Emergency. I want to make sure that when we build our new Accident and Emergency - and there is funding in this year’s budget - it is appropriate for the hospital, it is appropriate for the clientele that we have, and that it is state-of-the-art. Now, this has been conveyed to the member for Wanguri in a briefing with senior departmental people, and he knows it well.
What he is attempting to do is trapeze in and somehow say through his latter and contemporary efforts that he has somehow secured out of this government a new accident and emergency facility. Too late. Too dumb. It is not going to happen, because this thing has been on the books for some time. He has had no role in it. His lobbying has been a clumsy attempt to try and convey to people that somehow without his efforts this thing would not have happened. Well I can tell you that the lack of support of the Labor Party at Royal Darwin Hospital and the Accident Emergency is well known to everybody.
Mr STIRLING: A point of Order, Mr Speaker! I would just like to direct the Minister for Police’s attention, the fact that the Member for Araluen is in fact in this House. Last week the Centralian Advocate reported that the ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order!. There is no point of order.
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: One more outburst like that and you are out for an hour.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016