Mr PERRETT (Gympie—LNP) (7.12 pm): Late last month, our Master Clinical Services Plan was
released. It was 20 months late, having been due before COVID. Perhaps it was delayed because
Gympie needs a new hospital. The report found — The existing Gympie Hospital infrastructure creates significant clinical and operational challenges, with services spread across
multiple, poorly connected, multi-aged buildings. The fragmented operation of the facility is exacerbated by the steep topography of the site, and the inherent forms and structural constraints of the aged buildings.
The hospital cannot be patched. The report said—
Whilst ongoing minor capital works are undertaken at the site to maintain safety standards, there is a need to move away from
incremental capital works in favour of a broader investment in the site.
Whichever statistic you look at—ambulance ramping, wait times or rates of chronic disease—Gympie
has systemic problems.
Almost daily I receive complaints: patients are discharged late at night; those transferred to the
Sunshine Coast are discharged with no way to come home; patients are using their mobile phones to
ring for staff for attention; there are emergency department wait times; there are no beds; patients are
being sent home only to return with a worsening condition and are told the hospital cannot help and ‘go
talk to your GP’; there are no responses to phone calls; and there are long waiting lists.
Josephine is 78 and lives more than 60 kilometres away from the hospital. Her husband was
taken by ambulance to the emergency department at 10 am. Despite several calls to the hospital,
no-one called back. She was finally called at 2 am to pick him up. He had atypical pneumonia yet had
to wait on a bench outside, dressed in a singlet and shorts. It was August, it was cold and he had been
there for some time. Staff tell me that Queensland Health is trying to spin its way out of problems and
massage messages. There is a culture of secrecy, a lack of transparency, cover-ups and stalling.
Last Thursday the minister advised me that 17 unvaccinated staff were on leave. Since that
response I have received numerous emails from staff saying that I have been misled: the figure is much
higher and it is at least double that number. If a loss of staff caused problems with the paediatric ward,
this must be impacting services. I am hearing anecdotally that staff are run off their feet, stressed and
overworked. It has been reported directly to me that a toxic culture, horrendous workplace bullying and
discriminatory behaviour exists. I was told that staff are concerned with the lack of equipment and
patient care, given the significant staff deficits resulting in elective surgeries being postponed this
month, even with no current COVID in our community. We are heading for a crisis if the government
keeps ignoring Gympie.