The Health Minister is a master of political spin and diversion.
She is more interested in being evasive and arguing about terminology and cherry-picking time frames.
The Minister has never been forthcoming about what is going on at Gympie Hospital.
The latest response is not the experience that people have with Gympie Hospital. *
At the public Town Hall meeting in June, we heard story after story which suggest otherwise.
Constituents frequently come to me with their experiences which contradict the Minister’s claims.
Right across the board services are under stress and patients transferred or told to go to the Sunshine Coast.
No one finds out until services have been closed, reduced, or withdrawn.
It takes public action to get services to get them reinstated – sometimes several months later and at a reduced level.
That’s not intermittent.
On every measure the problems have been there for years.
We’ve had issues in the paediatric ward, ambulance ramping, emergency department, contraction of services in obstetrics and gynaecology and orthopaedics, and the Patient Travel Subsidy Scheme.
The closure of the “fracture clinic’ this year follows the fiasco of the closure of the paediatric ward last year.
The administrative assistance for patients accessing the PTSS was withdrawn and only reinstated after concerns were raised.
Nothing is seamless.
Hardworking staff are under pressure and doing their best under stressful circumstances.
They tell me that the Government tries to spin its way out of problems and massage messages.
There’s a lack of transparency and a culture of secrecy, covers ups and stalling.
The Master Clinical Services Plan identified we need a new hospital and a new site because facilities are old, not fit for purpose, fragmented, and spread across multiple buildings.
When I raised with the minister in correspondence about identifying a new site, the blunt answer was she had no plan to initiate a business case process for a new hospital at Gympie at this time.
*Link to response to petition: 5722T1389-BEC5.pdf (parliament.qld.gov.au)
1: 5722T1389 (29/9/2022) – Hon Yvette D’Ath MP – Response from the Minister for Health and Ambulance Services (Hon. D’Ath), to a paper petition (3804-22) presented by the member for Gympie, Mr Perrett, and an ePetition (3754-22) sponsored by the member for Gympie, Mr Perrett, from 623 and 5,914 petitioners respectively, requesting the House to provide Gympie hospital with services and future development which the Government’s own Clinical Services Master Plan says Gympie needs [Petitions – responses]
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