THE Health Minister has refused to guarantee that staffing levels will be maintained following Canberra Health Services (CHS) takeover of Calvary, say the Canberra Liberals.
Health spokesperson Leanne Castley, in a motion before the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, called on the government to guarantee that clinical services and staff numbers will not be affected by the compulsorily acquisition.
“Bizarrely, the government said it would maintain the current standard of clinical services but wouldn’t guarantee to maintain current staffing levels,” Ms Castley says.
“It concerns me that the government has not done any modelling, nor has any estimate of how many staff will choose not to transition to CHS.
“Three weeks after calling for Calvary’s 1800 staff to reach out to CHS only 120 had done so.
“I find it astounding that the [health] minister refuses to provide any guarantee of maintaining staffing levels to reassure staff, patients and the community.”
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![Teacher Vanessa Jones has been living in Higgins since 2001, and while she loves the area, she says she is “fed up” with the neglectful ACT government.
The Higgins shops have been completely abandoned, says Vanessa, preventing the opportunity for residents to have a community-centred space to socialise.
They only received bins nine months ago, she says, and requests for a water station and repairs to the bus station have gone unanswered.
“It’s very, very slow,” says Vanessa.
“I asked for the zebra crossing on Fullagar [Crescent] to be repainted, and we had to wait about six or nine months.
“That’s just such a long time… we pay a lot of rates.”
Vanessa says assistance from the government only seems to go to communities with time-rich and assertive communities, leaving places such as Higgins, where the majority of households have both adults working full-time and English may not be the first language of the family, at an automatic disadvantage.
“If you’ve got two people working, paying a mortgage, raising two or three kids, they don’t have the time,” says Vanessa.
Vanessa says the lack of attention quieter places such as Higgins is receiving is starting to look a lot like favouritism.
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