Mr HENDERSON - 2001-02-21
Yesterday in Question Time, you spouted much rhetoric about the wonderful hospital services which are being provided to Territorians by your government. In 1999, in a letter to your department, Dr David Green, an eminent specialist and emergency physician stated that:
The current A&E facility is the worst physical layout and dysfunctional department I have ever seen.
The Australian College of Emergency Clinicians confirmed today that the Accident and Emergency department at RDH has lost its accreditation as a teaching unit for the training of specialist and emergency physicians.
Minister, I warned you in a question in February last year that this was going to occur. What is your justification for doing so little for so long that the emergency department at RDH has lost accreditation thereby eliminating any capacity to recruit and retain trainees and registrars who wish to specialise in emergency medicine?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, a week is a long time in politics and indeed so is months and I sadly stand today to recognise this first question in eight months. The opposition loudly proclaim their interest in matters relating to health. They frequently call for answers in the media and in other august bodies but in this particular parliament this opposition member has held the record. Eight months it has taken him to stand to his feet and ask a question relating to health since June last year. I am pleased he has regained his interest in health. We have had several questions from him relating to fictitious oil spills and other things but this is the first health question. I am very pleased to receive it.
In the first place, we have to be very careful of taking data from the opposition spokesman on face value because he has a very exotic record of telling things that turn out to be untrue. I am very pleased that today they will finally announce their hospital policy. I note they were going to do it last Friday but nobody turned up and hopefully we will hear it today, and in their hospital policy I hope they will talk about what they are going to do about A&E.
I would be very, very surprised if it comes anywhere near matching what we are doing. We are spending some tens of millions of dollars and, in typical Labor style, this was seen as a trick by government and, ‘don’t believe it, they won’t build it, is the money really in the budget’. The money is in the budget, the builders are on site, the buildings are being demolished, the new doors are being put through now, right now, and as a result of that investment we will see state of the art accident and emergency facilities.
Mr Henderson: In two years time.
Mr DUNHAM: We will see it when they are built. It is not one of those things where you just go to a shop, buy something and plonk it on site. We build them and we build them making sure that we consult widely. This is a very important thing that this government believes we should do. We do it by being cognisant of best practice elsewhere so that we do not end up with a tower block of the type we have that was a legacy of the Commonwealth government. We do it to make sure that when we do build the thing that it has minimal disruption to a functioning working hospital that is open every day, 24 hours a day, and we take great pride in that. If it takes two years to build it, it takes two years to build it, because it will be built properly.
This is the first opportunity we have had to have a major redevelopment on that site. It will incorporate not just A&E, but it will make sure those departments that function close to A&E, like ICU and High Dependency Unit and Imaging and theatres, are also in close proximity, which they aren’t at the moment …
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Mr Speaker! The real point of the question, the question of accreditation, appears to have been lost, and I ask the minister to answer it.
Mr SPEAKER: As I have said on many occasions, the minister has a fair amount of leeway in answering the question. I believe that the question was broader than what the member for Nhulunbuy would indicate. The minister, please.
Mr DUNHAM:Hansard will reveal it was much broader, Mr Speaker, and that is why I am canvassing issues relating to those raised by Dr Green, and which were debated in this parliament so this ground has been covered.
The final question posed by the member of the opposition is: Has the Accident and Emergency department lost its accreditation? I am not aware that it has, and I will advise this Assembly today on whether that is true or untrue.
The current A&E facility is the worst physical layout and dysfunctional department I have ever seen.
The Australian College of Emergency Clinicians confirmed today that the Accident and Emergency department at RDH has lost its accreditation as a teaching unit for the training of specialist and emergency physicians.
Minister, I warned you in a question in February last year that this was going to occur. What is your justification for doing so little for so long that the emergency department at RDH has lost accreditation thereby eliminating any capacity to recruit and retain trainees and registrars who wish to specialise in emergency medicine?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, a week is a long time in politics and indeed so is months and I sadly stand today to recognise this first question in eight months. The opposition loudly proclaim their interest in matters relating to health. They frequently call for answers in the media and in other august bodies but in this particular parliament this opposition member has held the record. Eight months it has taken him to stand to his feet and ask a question relating to health since June last year. I am pleased he has regained his interest in health. We have had several questions from him relating to fictitious oil spills and other things but this is the first health question. I am very pleased to receive it.
In the first place, we have to be very careful of taking data from the opposition spokesman on face value because he has a very exotic record of telling things that turn out to be untrue. I am very pleased that today they will finally announce their hospital policy. I note they were going to do it last Friday but nobody turned up and hopefully we will hear it today, and in their hospital policy I hope they will talk about what they are going to do about A&E.
I would be very, very surprised if it comes anywhere near matching what we are doing. We are spending some tens of millions of dollars and, in typical Labor style, this was seen as a trick by government and, ‘don’t believe it, they won’t build it, is the money really in the budget’. The money is in the budget, the builders are on site, the buildings are being demolished, the new doors are being put through now, right now, and as a result of that investment we will see state of the art accident and emergency facilities.
Mr Henderson: In two years time.
Mr DUNHAM: We will see it when they are built. It is not one of those things where you just go to a shop, buy something and plonk it on site. We build them and we build them making sure that we consult widely. This is a very important thing that this government believes we should do. We do it by being cognisant of best practice elsewhere so that we do not end up with a tower block of the type we have that was a legacy of the Commonwealth government. We do it to make sure that when we do build the thing that it has minimal disruption to a functioning working hospital that is open every day, 24 hours a day, and we take great pride in that. If it takes two years to build it, it takes two years to build it, because it will be built properly.
This is the first opportunity we have had to have a major redevelopment on that site. It will incorporate not just A&E, but it will make sure those departments that function close to A&E, like ICU and High Dependency Unit and Imaging and theatres, are also in close proximity, which they aren’t at the moment …
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Mr Speaker! The real point of the question, the question of accreditation, appears to have been lost, and I ask the minister to answer it.
Mr SPEAKER: As I have said on many occasions, the minister has a fair amount of leeway in answering the question. I believe that the question was broader than what the member for Nhulunbuy would indicate. The minister, please.
Mr DUNHAM:Hansard will reveal it was much broader, Mr Speaker, and that is why I am canvassing issues relating to those raised by Dr Green, and which were debated in this parliament so this ground has been covered.
The final question posed by the member of the opposition is: Has the Accident and Emergency department lost its accreditation? I am not aware that it has, and I will advise this Assembly today on whether that is true or untrue.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016