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Canberra Today 24°/27° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Hospital scandal: Not about rights or wrongs, the election looms

Jon Stanhope… milked the “Bruce Stadium fiasco”.
“WE need to get to the bottom of this scandal and are again calling for a Royal Commission,” opposition health spokesman Jeremy Hanson concluded at the end of one of his press releases last week.

He made the call after the Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee cross-examined ACT auditor-general Maxine Cooper about her report into what the Liberals describe as the “data-doctoring scandal”.

This scandal has proved a goldmine for the Liberals and they are unlikely to let it go in the lead up to the election, where they will milk this issue for all it is worth in the same way that Jon Stanhope milked what he called “the Bruce Stadium fiasco” to bring Labor to power.

But Chief Minister Katy Gallagher is more astute than to concede a Royal Commission, in just the same way that Liberal Kate Carnell resisted such calls 12 years ago.

Fudging the figures is not the stuff of a Royal Commission – as much as it would suit the Liberals. It might be a different story if the issue went to covering up the quality of health care and undermining the ability of hospital staff to improve treatment.

Just as the Bruce Stadium Inquiry was largely handled by reports of the auditor-general, so this matter should be similarly handled.

What was good for the goose then, is good for the gander now! For all the fuss last time around, for all the accusations of incompetence, maladministration, pressure on public servants and the constant reiteration of law breaking – no one was ever taken to court, or even charged for that matter.

A scalp has already been claimed, with the public servant at the centre of the controversy, Kate Jackson, tendering her resignation. She had admitted in April to making hundreds of changes to emergency department records to improve waiting time results.

But the accusations are not really so much about right and wrong, competence and incompetence, pressure on public service or a toxic atmosphere at the hospital. They are about a looming election only three months away.

This does not mean there is not some truth in what the Liberals are exposing through their constant re-examination of every detail associated with the data doctoring. They have already exposed that “the decline in Emergency Department performance over the last decade may be worse than previously reported”.

The Opposition certainly understands that all they have to do is sow doubts in the minds of the electorate. And that is exactly what they are achieving.

An unguarded moment of reflection by the Chief Minister left her telling the Public Accounts Committee: “Health Ministers have a very short life expectancy and I have hung around perhaps too long in this instance, and at times I think that”.

On the one hand it is possible that she is beginning to feel the pressure. It is certainly the way the Liberals presented it to the media. They would love to think that they have her on the skids and are tarnishing her reputation this close to an election.

However, there is another possibility – one of the things that warm people to Gallagher is that she has been extraordinarily open and candid across a range of issues. It is more likely that this is how the statement will be interpreted. The Liberals did not include in their press statement the conclusion to the Chief Minister’s statement: “but I’ve hung around because I genuinely want to see the reform and I support the work that’s being done.’’

Meanwhile the Greens’ Amanda Bresnan has been trying to focus the debate on where health should be concerned.

“There is a continual focus on ED waiting times and other similar measures by both Labor and the Liberals and also in the media, which leaves out any debate about the quality of care or the outcomes people are receiving,” she has said.

She has been calling for some time for recognition of the “the need to establish measures of quality care and safety alongside the waiting time data”.

Although Bresnan has been astute in her observations, it does not meet the goal of her Assembly colleagues, who need to tarnish a leader enough to win an election.


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Ian Meikle, editor

Michael Moore

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