Dr LIM - 2006-03-29
The minister’s explanation about his 100 nurses does not ring true. Your department’s wages bill went up by $37m last year. Look at your annual report. You can blame the OCPE for mislabelling odd jobs in the department. If we were to assume all those nurses were employed at the highest level, then it would have cost no more than $13m. Where has the other $24m in employee expenses been allocated?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, the member for Greatorex seems to be helping me make the argument back to him. Many of the jobs that we have put on in the category of medical practitioners and clinicians at the senior clinical level. I would image that people such as our new anaesthetists, new intensivists, new paediatricians and the oncologists that we announced only yesterday in this House are far more expensive than nurses.
If you want to see the staff positions, we can certainly show you exactly which positions have been added. I will go through a few of them here. We have over 186 more nurses in the hospital, and 20 are in Community Health Services. The non-nursing staffing numbers in hospitals have gone up. We can see $6.1m of additional staffing going into the Royal Darwin Hospital Emergency Department. We have gone from 27 people in that department before the expansions we put in to 62 staff working there now. That is an addition of 30.5 staff positions into that area of the hospital alone.
We have increased RDH beds by 52, so that means additional medical and nursing staff around those. If you go through Alice Springs, you should be familiar with the ICU/HDU high dependency area there. We have put $1m of additional staffing into the Alice Springs Emergency Department, including high level clinical leadership positions.
One of the main initiatives that we have taken to ensure that the quality and safety issues are being taken care of throughout our health delivery is to ensure that there is good, strong clinical leadership right through the different service delivery areas of the department. That includes the departments within our main hospitals. It includes the delivery of such things as renal services and palliative care services. There are senior clinical positions that have been put into those. These are not fat cat public servants sitting behind desks, they are clinicians making sure that Territorians have a high level, safe, quality service in the area that they have particular expertise in. Those people do not come cheaply ...
Ms CARNEY: A point of order, Madam Speaker! The Minister for Health was reading from a document. I wonder if he would be good enough to table that document?
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, is it a document of a personal nature?
Dr TOYNE: I was not reading from it, I was simply …
Madam SPEAKER: You do not have to table it. I am asking you if is it a document you are willing to table? It is up to you what you do.
Dr TOYNE: I am quite happy to table it, Madam Speaker. It is simply a list of our health achievements. Do you want me to read it out? I will give you a bit of a read.
Quality hospital care – for the first time all five hospitals are now accredited. This is in the document that I am reading from. More hospital beds – 53 - from 567 to 620,. More nurses – over 100 extra nurses in our health system; 86 in the hospitals, 20.5 in Community Health Services. More hospital staff – we have gone from 2233 in the time we came to government to 2522, an extra 289 staff ...
Ms CARNEY: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Dr TOYNE: You wanted to know about it. The better emergency department …
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, please pause.
Ms CARNEY: I am raising a point of order and would like to be heard if it is all right with you.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms CARNEY: Madam Speaker, I ask whether the minister is now reading from the same document from which he was reading earlier. We could be …
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Government members.
Ms CARNEY: He said that he would table a document. He indicated that he would table that document. It appears – we could be wrong – as though he is now reading from a separate document. We want the original document from which he was reading.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. Minister, can we just clarify: are you going to table a document?
Dr TOYNE: Yes, I am quite happy to table this one.
Madam SPEAKER: You can table it at the end of your answer.
Dr TOYNE: Yes, I will.
Mr Stirling: Finish it today.
Dr TOYNE: Yes, by the end of Question Time, Syd.
Better emergency department - $6.1m into the Royal Darwin Hospital Emergency Department; $1m additional into the Alice Springs Hospital Emergency Department; the expansion of Hospital in the Home to seven days a week in Darwin, catering for 17 patients at any given time.
I could go on, there are pages of this. I can tell you that every single …
Ms Carney: Well, why is that everyone at Royal Darwin Hospital is so unhappy? Why is it that the AMA is miserable about you, if that is all true?
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Leader of the Opposition?
Dr TOYNE: They do not like to hear good news, that lot. Every single dot point in this document has expanded the safety, quality and extent of our health service in the Northern Territory. I am proud of that and of our government for doing that. The opposition can play negatives all they like, but the inescapable truth is that our health service is infinitely better than …
Ms Carney: It is Territorians who are complaining, you fool.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, Leader of the Opposition!
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! The member well knows not to make those sorts of remarks. I urge her to withdraw the remark she just made.
Madam SPEAKER: I ask you to withdraw, Leader of the Opposition.
Ms CARNEY: I withdraw the word ‘fool’, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: Thank you. Minister, have you completed your answer?
Dr TOYNE: There is so much more good news, but I will leave it at that for the moment, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: And can you please table the document?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, the member for Greatorex seems to be helping me make the argument back to him. Many of the jobs that we have put on in the category of medical practitioners and clinicians at the senior clinical level. I would image that people such as our new anaesthetists, new intensivists, new paediatricians and the oncologists that we announced only yesterday in this House are far more expensive than nurses.
If you want to see the staff positions, we can certainly show you exactly which positions have been added. I will go through a few of them here. We have over 186 more nurses in the hospital, and 20 are in Community Health Services. The non-nursing staffing numbers in hospitals have gone up. We can see $6.1m of additional staffing going into the Royal Darwin Hospital Emergency Department. We have gone from 27 people in that department before the expansions we put in to 62 staff working there now. That is an addition of 30.5 staff positions into that area of the hospital alone.
We have increased RDH beds by 52, so that means additional medical and nursing staff around those. If you go through Alice Springs, you should be familiar with the ICU/HDU high dependency area there. We have put $1m of additional staffing into the Alice Springs Emergency Department, including high level clinical leadership positions.
One of the main initiatives that we have taken to ensure that the quality and safety issues are being taken care of throughout our health delivery is to ensure that there is good, strong clinical leadership right through the different service delivery areas of the department. That includes the departments within our main hospitals. It includes the delivery of such things as renal services and palliative care services. There are senior clinical positions that have been put into those. These are not fat cat public servants sitting behind desks, they are clinicians making sure that Territorians have a high level, safe, quality service in the area that they have particular expertise in. Those people do not come cheaply ...
Ms CARNEY: A point of order, Madam Speaker! The Minister for Health was reading from a document. I wonder if he would be good enough to table that document?
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, is it a document of a personal nature?
Dr TOYNE: I was not reading from it, I was simply …
Madam SPEAKER: You do not have to table it. I am asking you if is it a document you are willing to table? It is up to you what you do.
Dr TOYNE: I am quite happy to table it, Madam Speaker. It is simply a list of our health achievements. Do you want me to read it out? I will give you a bit of a read.
Quality hospital care – for the first time all five hospitals are now accredited. This is in the document that I am reading from. More hospital beds – 53 - from 567 to 620,. More nurses – over 100 extra nurses in our health system; 86 in the hospitals, 20.5 in Community Health Services. More hospital staff – we have gone from 2233 in the time we came to government to 2522, an extra 289 staff ...
Ms CARNEY: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Dr TOYNE: You wanted to know about it. The better emergency department …
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, please pause.
Ms CARNEY: I am raising a point of order and would like to be heard if it is all right with you.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms CARNEY: Madam Speaker, I ask whether the minister is now reading from the same document from which he was reading earlier. We could be …
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Government members.
Ms CARNEY: He said that he would table a document. He indicated that he would table that document. It appears – we could be wrong – as though he is now reading from a separate document. We want the original document from which he was reading.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. Minister, can we just clarify: are you going to table a document?
Dr TOYNE: Yes, I am quite happy to table this one.
Madam SPEAKER: You can table it at the end of your answer.
Dr TOYNE: Yes, I will.
Mr Stirling: Finish it today.
Dr TOYNE: Yes, by the end of Question Time, Syd.
Better emergency department - $6.1m into the Royal Darwin Hospital Emergency Department; $1m additional into the Alice Springs Hospital Emergency Department; the expansion of Hospital in the Home to seven days a week in Darwin, catering for 17 patients at any given time.
I could go on, there are pages of this. I can tell you that every single …
Ms Carney: Well, why is that everyone at Royal Darwin Hospital is so unhappy? Why is it that the AMA is miserable about you, if that is all true?
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Leader of the Opposition?
Dr TOYNE: They do not like to hear good news, that lot. Every single dot point in this document has expanded the safety, quality and extent of our health service in the Northern Territory. I am proud of that and of our government for doing that. The opposition can play negatives all they like, but the inescapable truth is that our health service is infinitely better than …
Ms Carney: It is Territorians who are complaining, you fool.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, Leader of the Opposition!
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! The member well knows not to make those sorts of remarks. I urge her to withdraw the remark she just made.
Madam SPEAKER: I ask you to withdraw, Leader of the Opposition.
Ms CARNEY: I withdraw the word ‘fool’, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: Thank you. Minister, have you completed your answer?
Dr TOYNE: There is so much more good news, but I will leave it at that for the moment, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: And can you please table the document?
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016