Dr LIM - 2005-08-16
Nurses at the Alice Springs Hospital recently threatened to strike because nurse numbers are inadequate to care for the number of patients at the hospital, thus putting patient safety at risk. In March this year, when staff threatened similar action, you denied you were playing Russian roulette with patients’ lives because of staff shortages. Despite your promises to fix the problem, nothing has changed. When will the excuses stop and the problem of staff shortages be fixed so that patient safety is no longer compromised?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, it is like a broken record, the opposition coming back on the …
Dr Lim: Because you cannot fix it. You do not fix it. Fix it!
Madam SPEAKER: Order, member for Greatorex!
Dr TOYNE: We are starting to see two things: one is that their activities as shadow seems to take the form of having a coffee with a few nurses every couple of weeks at the Alice Springs Hospital …
Dr Lim: Personal abuse is all you can do.
Ms Carney: Do you doubt what nurses tell us? Is that what you are saying? That is scandalous!
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Dr TOYNE: There is a huge health system out there. Why don’t you start looking at what our remote nurses are doing and what our other hospitals are doing?
Dr Lim: I will be asking that too, eventually.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Dr TOYNE: Now, let us deal with your issue.
The nurses did have a meeting and, subsequent to that meeting, they passed a resolution basically saying while they will not rescind concerns they have about the hospital management, they also acknowledge, very strongly, the efforts of the hospital manager in maintaining very strong communications with the nurses.
After I heard of the meeting and I was told of the outcomes of it, first of all, I went to the hospital. I walked around and talked to the staff in every working unit of that hospital. I found that there are a couple of problems that were brought to my attention. First of all, there is a full nursing complement in the Emergency Department; however, some of the nurses who have been recruited do not have a full skill set for working in that area of hospital operations. Second, there are ongoing problems with recruiting the full complement of critical care nurses into the Intensive Care Unit. Generally, around the rest of the hospital, we have very happy people working on their programs. I was very impressed with both the morale and work output.
In recent times, there has been a high volume of demand coming through the front door of the hospital, which is quite common during the cold weather months in Central Australia. As a result, at one stage they were using overflow beds in the day surgery area, which is a normal tactic that the hospital might adopt.
What have we done on hearing those concerns from the nurses? First of all, we have transferred four experienced critical care nurses from Darwin to Alice Springs as part of our hospital network arrangements. There will be experienced critical care nurses to help lead the operations in ICU and the ED section. That will take care of the need to move newly-recruited nurses into a full skill set in those areas.
We are now looking internationally for critical care nurses. We are, particularly, trying to recruit nurses from Great Britain, where we understand there are nurses who are looking for opportunities elsewhere around the world. We are doing absolutely everything that a government can fairly do in response to the issues there.
I get sick and tired of hearing the member for Greatorex talking about crises in Alice Springs Hospital. On the basis of what? On the basis of his opinion and political opportunism. It is not on the basis of getting down there and finding out the facts about what is going on in that hospital ...
Dr Lim interjecting.
Dr TOYNE: The hospital is getting sick and tired of your rhetoric. If you want to talk about Alice Springs Hospital, or any other part of the health system, get out and do the hard work and find out what is going on.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, it is like a broken record, the opposition coming back on the …
Dr Lim: Because you cannot fix it. You do not fix it. Fix it!
Madam SPEAKER: Order, member for Greatorex!
Dr TOYNE: We are starting to see two things: one is that their activities as shadow seems to take the form of having a coffee with a few nurses every couple of weeks at the Alice Springs Hospital …
Dr Lim: Personal abuse is all you can do.
Ms Carney: Do you doubt what nurses tell us? Is that what you are saying? That is scandalous!
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Dr TOYNE: There is a huge health system out there. Why don’t you start looking at what our remote nurses are doing and what our other hospitals are doing?
Dr Lim: I will be asking that too, eventually.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Dr TOYNE: Now, let us deal with your issue.
The nurses did have a meeting and, subsequent to that meeting, they passed a resolution basically saying while they will not rescind concerns they have about the hospital management, they also acknowledge, very strongly, the efforts of the hospital manager in maintaining very strong communications with the nurses.
After I heard of the meeting and I was told of the outcomes of it, first of all, I went to the hospital. I walked around and talked to the staff in every working unit of that hospital. I found that there are a couple of problems that were brought to my attention. First of all, there is a full nursing complement in the Emergency Department; however, some of the nurses who have been recruited do not have a full skill set for working in that area of hospital operations. Second, there are ongoing problems with recruiting the full complement of critical care nurses into the Intensive Care Unit. Generally, around the rest of the hospital, we have very happy people working on their programs. I was very impressed with both the morale and work output.
In recent times, there has been a high volume of demand coming through the front door of the hospital, which is quite common during the cold weather months in Central Australia. As a result, at one stage they were using overflow beds in the day surgery area, which is a normal tactic that the hospital might adopt.
What have we done on hearing those concerns from the nurses? First of all, we have transferred four experienced critical care nurses from Darwin to Alice Springs as part of our hospital network arrangements. There will be experienced critical care nurses to help lead the operations in ICU and the ED section. That will take care of the need to move newly-recruited nurses into a full skill set in those areas.
We are now looking internationally for critical care nurses. We are, particularly, trying to recruit nurses from Great Britain, where we understand there are nurses who are looking for opportunities elsewhere around the world. We are doing absolutely everything that a government can fairly do in response to the issues there.
I get sick and tired of hearing the member for Greatorex talking about crises in Alice Springs Hospital. On the basis of what? On the basis of his opinion and political opportunism. It is not on the basis of getting down there and finding out the facts about what is going on in that hospital ...
Dr Lim interjecting.
Dr TOYNE: The hospital is getting sick and tired of your rhetoric. If you want to talk about Alice Springs Hospital, or any other part of the health system, get out and do the hard work and find out what is going on.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016