The Ultimate in Spin?

[JohnB]

Queensland's health system has major problems.

 

In the last couple of years;

1. Dr. Jayant Patel (Dr. Death) working at the Bundaberg Base Hospital was linked by Coronial Enquiry to the deaths of 13 patients. (More like 80 but we can only provide convicting evidence of 13) He was considered so dangerous by staff that nurses would actually hide patients from him. He's currently in hiding in the US after being flown out of Australia by the Queensland Health Dept.

 

2. The Casualty (E.R.) ward of Caboolture Hospital closed due to lack of staff. Victims of a car accident 200 yards from the front gate had to be transported to Brisbane (50 miles) for treatment.

 

3. A Doctor at Rockhampton Base Hospital has been stood down over an undisclosed rape conviction in the US. He raped a nurse at the Hospital he was working at.

 

4. A Doctor at Mackay Base Hospital (an undergraduate of the James Patel School of Medicine who hasn't killed anyone yet) has been (a) performing surgery he was not qualified to do, (b) performing surgery without the required supervision and © falsifying reports about the surgery performed.

 

We go to the polls on September 9th. The Premier has been campaigning on the basis of "Yes there are problems, but only my united team can solve them." and "We are moving to fix the problems and the people of Queensland should re-elect us to let us finish the job." I should add that he has already had some 10 years to "finish the job".

 

Now is that putting a good light on an absolute disaster or what?

[Phi for All]

Well, that's what spin is all about. If you're not doing something right, say that you are. If you're doing something wrong, say that you're not, then accuse your opponent of doing it.

 

I speak spin, so here's a translation:

"We are moving to fix the problems and the people of Queensland should re-elect us to let us finish the job." Moving as in *not moving*, fix as in *doing enough to be seen as doing something*, finish the job as in *do a little more after re-election, but not enough to screw up our next chance at re-election on the same issue*.

 

What he's really saying is, "We haven't really done anything yet because if we let it get bad enough we can campaign on fixing it and tell people we're the only ones who understand how to."

[Aardvark]

You lump a lot of unrelated matters together and try and imply that there is some sort of a crisis of the governments making.

 

An apparently incompetent doctor has been uncovered and is no longer working in Australia. Even if the accusations against him are true this isn't a sign of any government failure. Sometimes incompetent doctors are found, regardless of the political situation, left, right or anything else. What fault is that of politicians?

 

An Emergency ward suffers from staff shortages. Regretable, but not the end of the world or symptomatic of any great crisis.

 

A doctor is found to have an undisclosed criminal conviction and is forced to stand down. This appears to be an instance of quite proper action being takn by the relevant authorities. Where is the major problem?

 

A surgeon has been performing surgery he is not apparently qualified to do. He has been discovered.

 

You have highlighted some instances of normal human failings. In any health system there will be people who perform inadequately or unethically. The system is then to be judged on how it identifies and deals with those people.

 

You are simply implying criticism of the authorities for the normal occurance of these problems which would arise under any system of government. You have not demonstrated that Queensland's health system is suffering 'major problems' or is in any way dysfunctional.

[Tetrahedrite]

Completely agree with Aardvark. It's not like a conservative government is going to be any more keen to spend money on public hospitals. The very word public is seen as evil to conservatives, isn't it?

[JohnB]

You lump a lot of unrelated matters together and try and imply that there is some sort of a crisis of the governments making.

Unrelated?

An apparently incompetent doctor has been uncovered and is no longer working in Australia. Even if the accusations against him are true this isn't a sign of any government failure. Sometimes incompetent doctors are found, regardless of the political situation, left, right or anything else. What fault is that of politicians?

He was "discovered" after the nurses went public following nearly 2 years of complaints to the relevent authorities. Following his discovery, when it was obvious the cover up couldn't hold Qld Health flew him to the US at the expense of the Australian taxpayers.

A doctor is found to have an undisclosed criminal conviction and is forced to stand down. This appears to be an instance of quite proper action being takn by the relevant authorities. Where is the major problem?

The doctor concerned was outed by a Google search by a journalist. If the information is that easy to find, how did Qld Health miss it? BTW, actually two Drs have been stood down after their rape convictions have been exposed.

A surgeon has been performing surgery he is not apparently qualified to do. He has been discovered.

He was discovered 2 years ago after complaints. He is still performing surgery and Qld Health has been shown (By the Australian College of Surgeons ) to be falsifying records in favour of this Dr.

An Emergency ward suffers from staff shortages. Regretable, but not the end of the world or symptomatic of any great crisis.

While some may describe a situation of having no staff at all as a "staff shortage", I ain't one of them.

 

As to "symptomatic of any great crisis" I give you the findings of Geoff Davies who continued the enquiry after Tony Morris QC was removed following legal action by, guess who? Queensland Health.

 

"a blatant exercise of secreting information from public gaze for no reason other than that the disclosure of the information might be embarrassing to government"

 

"concealment practices of this kind, encouraged by politicians, filtered down to Queensland Health staff and, through them, to administrators in public hospitals".

 

"tendency of administrators to ignore or suppress criticism" Suppress?

 

"Bringing to light these and other problems in the public hospital system was made very much more difficult by a culture of concealment of practices which, if brought to light, might be embarrassing to Queensland Health or the Government,"

 

"Unsurprisingly, Queensland Health adopted a similar approach and, because inadequate budgets meant that there would be inadequate health care, there was quite a lot to conceal. Again unsurprisingly, the same approach was adopted by administrators in public hospitals and this, in turn, led to threats of retribution to those who saw it as their duty to complain about inadequate health care. All this reflects poorly on the politicians involved in the stewardship of Queensland Health." "Threats of retribution"?

 

Or as Tony Mottis QC said on day 32 during the hearings in Townsville;

"Amongst the material that's been provided to me is a very detailed audit report prepared at Townsville Hospital, which I understand was only obtained by Inquiry staff as a result of coming to Townsville and, in effect, conducting something of a raid at the Executive Offices at Townsville Hospital.

 

It is unsatisfactory that we're left in the situation that a report like that was only uncovered as a result of our investigative efforts, and it really leaves in the back of the mind a question of how many other similar reports there are

throughout the state that haven't been brought to our attention."

 

"the material I've seen includes e-mails from Dr Buckland personally directing staff to conceal that information not only from the public, but also from the Crime and Misconduct Commission and from the Queensland Police Service." Now why would anyone conceal things from the Police, I wonder?

 

Sorry mate, but if you can't see a systemic problem here, you're on your own. Since the ALP has held government for 15 of the last 17 years, I would indeed say that there is a "crisis of the governments making."

It's not like a conservative government is going to be any more keen to spend money on public hospitals. The very word public is seen as evil to conservatives, isn't it?

Considering that Qld's Public Hospital system during Joh's reign was superior to the rest of the nations and we now spend less per capita than any other state, I don't see how this is valid. (And yes he was a conniving, bribe-able, arrogant SOB, but he wasn't all bad. You've just got to love a guy who can front a Royal Commission and admit that he "found" a brown paper bag with $50,000 in it in front of his office and thought it was a "donation" from an anonymous benefactor. )

 

To be honest, I'm worried whichever way the election goes. Up here, the ALP has tried to do as little as possible so that they don't put people offside. This has worked to a point, but what were small problems have just got larger. If they win, there is every reason to think the trend will continue. However, if the Coallition win, their current numbers are so small that we will have a lot of "first time" pollies as Ministers, which could be a recipe for disaster.