Children’s Teething Problems

The Auditor-General’s Report The New Royal Children’s Hospital a public private partnership highlights concerns in relation to a $35 million donation that was expected to come from the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation and was underwritten by consortium partner Babcock and Brown International.

Shadow Minister for Health Helen Shardey said it had now emerged that due to the downturn in global financial markets there uncertainty about whether this $35 million would be available to the project.

The bottom line will be that unless this money is forthcoming either through the Royal Children’s Hospital or Babcock and Brown, taxpayers will have to meet the shortfall, Mrs Shardey said.

The A-G’s report also raises concerns about the failure of the Department of Human Services to develop a state-wide plan for the delivery of paediatric services despite a recommendation by the A-G on this matter going back to 2002.

A very complicated financial arrangement which involves the transfer of ownership of the Royal Children’s Hospital project to Babcock and Brown Partnerships, a subsidiary of original project sponsor Babcock and Brown International, is raised by the A-G as another concern. (p72)

According to the A-G this transfer took place in 2008 with the approval of the Minister for Health but apparently without his department providing him with documented legal advice.

The A-G raised some real concerns about the currency of the information put to the Minister which formed the basis of the department’s advice on this matter, Mrs Shardey said.

In the planning for the hospital the A-G noted that the Minister’s department was unable to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the development, operation and internal logic of its own forecasting model.

The A-G report noted that the Minister’s department also failed to provide evidence to show how advice from doctors and clinicians was taken into account when making adjustments to forecasts of increased demand at the hospital, Mrs Shardey said.

It is obvious that the Brumby Government based its projections for Victorian children’s healthcare needs on a declining birth rate forecast back in 2002, which everyone now knows was inaccurate and infact on the contrary, the birth rate in Victoria has actually grown substantially.

Here we have yet another A-G report demonstrating a failure by the Minister for Health to provide leadership or vision, or to plan appropriately for and adequate Victorian healthcare system, Mrs Shardey said.

Brumby Fails To Improve Victoria’s Drinking Water Quality

The Brumby Government has failed again to improve the quality of Victoria’s drinking water, with water suppliers detecting E.coli, aluminium and dangerous parasites in supplies between 2007 and 2008.

Shadow Minister for Health Helen Shardey said Victoria’s poor water quality was putting Victorian families at risk.

The Annual report on drinking water quality in Victoria 2007-08 released today by the Department of Human Services details 195 water quality alerts the same number of threats as the previous year.

The report found:

· Parks Victoria’s Lakeside-Candlebark Campground in the Lake Eildon National Park continues to harbour E. coli, and has done so for three out of the last four years.

· Evidence of Cryptosporidium a nasty parasite that caused the contamination of Sydney’s water supply in 1998 at Altona.

· Taste and odour issues at various locations including Emerald, Monbulk, Silvan, Dandenong and Brighton.

· E. coli cultivating at Cranbourne, Seaford, Bonbeach, Rosebud, Kooweerup, Upper Beaconsfield, Mt Eliza, Nar Nar Goon, Noble Park, Wallan, Emerald, Gembrook, Warranwood, Doncaster, Werribee South and Warburton, and a very high level reading at Monbulk in March 2008.

In January 2008 Kalorama Reservoir near Monbulk recorded E. coli readings that were worse than Melbourne’s Yarra River, Mrs Shardey said.

There is something very wrong with the Brumby Government when for two years it has failed to address recurring water quality issues.

The Brumby Government is wasting millions of taxpayer dollars to build a pipeline from drought-stricken northern Victoria which won’t have access to any water while Victorians are facing potential health issues.

With the failure of Health Minister Daniel Andrews to manage our hospitals, waiting lists and emergency wards, the last thing Victorian hospitals need is the pressure of an E. Coli outbreak in our drinking water.

The provision of pure, safe water is the most basic service taxpayers expect the government to deliver. The Brumby Government must fix the fundamentals and put the health of Victorian families first, Mrs Shardey said.

More Ambulance Delays Prompt More Excuses From Labor

An 18-minute wait for an ambulance to travel just 200 metres, or two blocks, from the Maryborough Ambulance Station to the local football oval after the collapse and subsequent death of a young footballer earlier this month is another tragic reminder of the Brumby Government’s failure to adequately staff country ambulance stations.

Shadow Health Minister Helen Shardey said the admission by Ambulance Victoria that the appalling ambulance delay was caused by a systems breakdown would add to the grief of the family of 24-year-old Carl Lawrence, who died in Maryborough on 4 April.

While John Brumby and Daniel Andrews boast about Labor’s health record, Maryborough residents and country Victorians who don’t have access to appropriate levels of care in an emergency are left to suffer, Mrs Shardey said.

It is a disgrace that the Maryborough ambulance service was unmanned because paramedics were on a fatigue break without being replaced and the Health Minister Daniel Andrews should explain why country Victorians are being denied adequate ambulance services.

Ambulance Victoria also said it was disappointed its response time was longer than what it would have been had Maryborough had coverage, and Carl’s family will never know whether a faster response time would have saved their son’s life.

A quicker response would have afforded Carl Lawrence the best possible care available, care that was denied to him because of the Brumby Government’s failure to adequately staff country ambulance stations.

Concerns have been raised for a number of years about the shortage of paramedics in Maryborough and the consequent risk to lives.

Carl Lawrence’s family is not the only Victorian family to have suffered because of a lack of adequate country ambulance services.

In January a 38-year-old Barooga woman died from complications following an ectopic pregnancy after waiting two hours for an ambulance to transfer her from Cobram District Hospital to Shepparton for emergency surgery.

John Brumby and his incompetent Minister for Health should take responsibility for the failures in Victoria’s health system which put lives at risk, Mrs Shardey said.

More Broken Promises — More Babies Missing Out

Thousands of newborn babies are missing out on vital neo-natal hearing tests despite Labor’s 2006 election promise, Shadow Minister for Health Helen Shardey said today.

In 2006 the Labor Government promised that if re-elected, it would roll out a program of neo-natal hearing testing for every newborn baby in 70 public and private hospitals across the state because early identification of hearing problems was vital in giving children the speech and language skills they need to make the most of their lives.
(Bronwyn Pike, Bendigo, October 30 2006).

Almost three years have passed and only a quarter of Victoria’s hospitals have the program the Health Minister should hang his head in shame, Mrs Shardey said.

The Brumby Government is once again failing the most vulnerable Victorians.

There is something very wrong with the Brumby Government when Bendigo where this election promise was made doesn’t even have a neo-natal hearing program. In fact all but one public country hospital has been duped on this commitment.

Four-year-old Bendigo child Jacob Floyd is one of many victims of this government’s neglect of the health system.

Born profoundly deaf, his condition was not discovered until he was 15 months old. His mother Andrea believes that if Jacob had lived in Melbourne, his condition would have been diagnosed earlier, which means he would have received therapy to help with his language skills much sooner.

Mrs Floyd said if the government had fulfilled its election promise, Jacob would have been fitted with his cochlear implant almost a year earlier and would be starting school next year, but because he missed out on promised healthcare his mum says Jacob is not nearly ready for school.

Now the government says the program will not be fully implemented until June 2011, seven months after the next state election.

How can the Premier and his embattled Health Minister expect Victorians to trust them when only 11 programs have been introduced since the 2006 announcement and 52 hospitals have missed out?

Country Victorians are sick of this government’s contempt. They deserve action, not empty promises, and the Brumby Government needs to be held accountable for its failure to deliver basic health services, Mrs Shardey said.

Hospital Waiting List Manipulation Exposed

The revelation of details of hospital waiting list manipulation is further evidence that the Brumby Government is hiding the true extent of delays in our hospitals, Shadow Minister for Health Helen Shardey said today.

The Brumby Labor Government has misrepresented and covered up the crisis in our health system, and has consistently denied waiting list manipulation.

For more than twelve months, the Opposition has repeatedly raised serious concerns over the accuracy and under-reporting of Victorian hospital waiting lists, Mrs Shardey said.

Each time the Brumby Government has responded with denials. It now appears there is significant evidence that confirms our concerns over secret waiting lists.

Today I have written to the Chairman of the Upper House Inquiry into Hospital Performance and requested the Committee investigate the records and files on the manipulation of hospital waiting lists and bring these files before the Committee’s hearings.

The Labor Government is engaged in a systematic attempt to conceal the true extent of failures in the delivery of basic services.

These revelations today follow on from an Ombudsman’s report last week which revealed crime statistics had been under-reported for years by the Brumby Government.

I think increasingly Victorians are realising that the boasts of the Brumby Government are without foundation.

After nearly 10 years and $250 billion, the Brumby Government’s spending per person on health is the lowest in Australia. This is putting unprecedented pressure on our health system and is impacting on the lives of Victorians.

Last week Dr Peter Lazzari was sacked after he made a submission to the Upper House Inquiry into Public Hospital Performance outlining serious issues in the health system and in particular the manipulation of waiting lists.

John Brumby has refused to guarantee that all public sector workers are free to volunteer evidence and submissions to government inquiries without fear of retribution, Mrs Shardey said.

Labor Scraps Ambulance Victoria First Aid Training

Shadow Minister for Health Helen Shardey said it was shameful that less than a year after merging Victoria’s rural and metropolitan ambulance network Labor will scrap Ambulance Victoria’s first aid training services.

An alert recently posted on the Ambulance Victoria website reads: Ambulance Victoria First Aid will soon be withdrawing from providing First Aid training. Public courses will be conducted up to the end of April 2009. No more bookings will be taken for onsite First Aid training.

Mrs Shardey said it was outrageous that first aid training for Anaphylaxis Management (treatment for anaphylactic shock) was one of the programs that would no longer be available from Ambulance Victoria’s service, particularly when the Brumby Government made such training mandatory in schools.

The website also notes that the First Aid Training and Qualifications division of Ambulance Victoria employs 12 full-time staff and more than 100 part time instructors.

These instructors conduct courses specifically tailored to save lives in workplaces and at home, Mrs Shardey said.

The division is managed from Ballarat and training is conducted at outlets including Bairnsdale, Ballarat, Bendigo, Colac, Geelong, Hamilton, Mildura, Sale, Swan Hill, Traralgon West, Warrnambool, Wangaratta and Wodonga.

How many more programs can the Brumby Government cut from rural and regional health services? Mrs Shardey said.

Not only has this Labor Government made it more difficult for vulnerable Victorians to access hospital care through lack of hospital beds and closure of maternity services, now it is limiting rural and regional access to first aid training, Mrs Shardey said.

Outside metropolitan Melbourne someone’s first aid training can often be the difference between life and death for a workmate or family member in an emergency.

The Brumby Government should be boosting health services, not scrapping first aid training programs that provide local jobs and save lives, Mrs Shardey said.

Labor’s Health Spend Lowest In Australia

Victorian families are suffering because the Brumby Government continues to mismanage and underfund the public health system, Shadow Minister for Health Helen Shardey said today.

The Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services 2009 reveals Labor’s spending per person on health is the lowest in Australia.

The report also shows that Victoria has the lowest number of beds per person in Australia – just 2.4 beds compared with the Australian average of 2.7.

“On top of these shocking revelations, there has also been a steady increase from 2003 to 2007 in the number of days sick Victorians spend waiting for elective surgery,” Mrs Shardey said.

“This is no surprise to the thousands of patients languishing on long elective surgery waiting lists, with one in five people having experienced ‘extended waiting times’.

“There’s also a worrying trend emerging in our public hospitals where fewer patients are being allocated to Category 1 (urgent) surgery, prompting a blowout in Category 2 (semi-urgent) figures.

“This means Victoria has 29 per cent fewer patients listed as Category 1 surgery patients than NSW, but we also have the second highest number of patients in the nation listed as Category 2.

“I fear public hospitals are being discouraged to classify patients at Category 1 in order to meet their hospital benchmarks and retain their funding.”

Victoria also has the dubious distinction of being the second highest state in relation to ‘sentinel’ events.

‘Sentinel’ events are defined as the number of reported adverse events that occur because of hospital system and process deficiencies which result in death or serious harm.

Of the 45 reported events in Victoria, 20 involved an operation on the wrong body part.

Victoria also has a higher unplanned hospital readmission rate than the national average, meaning that more patients are being forced to return to hospital after their initial treatment.

“This report shows once again that Labor’s mismanagement and underfunding of the Victorian health system means Victorian families are being denied a basic health service.

“Labor has had ten years and $250 billion in revenue but can’t deliver a basic health service to Victorian families,” Mrs Shardey said.

Health Service Still Poor Despite Rehashed Labor Hype

Despite the hype and ceremony, Premier John Brumby’s much anticipated Annual Statement of Government Intentions is yet another rehash of old health announcements and initiatives dressed up to look brand new, Shadow Minister for Health Helen Shardey said today.

Hidden within the 90 pages of hype in this booklet is an embarassingly meagre offering of only five pages of health statements all of which have already been announced, Mrs Shardey said.

The statement shows a heavy reliance on Commonwealth funding, with the Premier crowing about $181 million of Federal money only to admit in the next line that this will be subject to COAG negotiation.

Some of Mr Brumby’s claims about Victoria being the best-performing state for elective surgery are rather puzzling, as according to The Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services 2009, Queensland out-performed Victoria and Victoria was above the national average for patients waiting more than 365 days for elective surgery*, Mrs Shardey said.

The Productivity Commision’s report also indicated that one in five Victorians on the elective surgery waiting list had extended waiting times.

The Cancer Action Plan, The Tobacco Action Plan and the National Registration of Health Professionals have all been announced before.

The same can be said of the Government’s stalled WorkHealth program which, despite being announced in July last year, was only partly rolled out three months later, Mrs Shardey said.

Apart from providing some funding for already announced initiatives and highlighting some budget items, there is not one new initiative for health in this entire announcement.

After nearly ten years the Brumby Government is tired and failing to deliver basic health services to the Victorian community.

*page 10.28

Patients Being Kept Off Official Waiting Lists

More than 33 000 Victorians are waiting for outpatient’s appointments and the numbers keep rising, says Helen Shardey, Shadow Minister for Health. As of December 2007 there were an additional 8722 patients waiting for an appointment than there were in the three months previously at the end of September 2007. This represents a 35 percent increase.

These 33 869 people waiting for an outpatient appointment in Victoria are on top of the 39 502 published elective surgery waiting list for Victoria’s public hospitals.

Freedom of Information documents obtained by the Opposition reveal that the Brumby Government is failing in its duty of care when it comes to getting sick Victorians treated in a timely manner, says Mrs Shardey.

There are literally tens of thousands of patients languishing on the Government’s secret outpatient waiting lists and thousands more who don’t have appointments who are waiting to get onto these lists to see a doctor.

People must be seen and assessed in hospital outpatient clinics before they can be put on a waiting list for surgery, explains Mrs Shardey

We are now in the unconscionable position of having people waiting to get onto these lists in order to join the queue for elective surgery, says Mrs Shardey.

Hospitals are being forced to manipulate their waiting lists in order to avoid being penalised by the Government. The result is that thousands of people who are waiting to see a specialist do not show up on the official elective surgery waiting list, which is tabled in the Your Hospitals report. In many cases these people are waiting years, says Mrs Shardey.

These figures reveal just how bad our waiting lists have become with thousands of country Victorian’s being pushed onto outpatient appointment lists, says Mrs Shardey.

Forty -four percent of people waiting for outpatient appointments are from regional Victoria. The outpatient waiting lists for Victoria’s main regional hospitals (Ballarat, Barwon, Bendigo, and Goulburn Valley Health) show a staggering 14 855 people waiting for appointments.

Some patients are being forced to wait years for treatment. A Category 1 (urgent) patient at Barwon Health waited an incredible 1605 days* or just over four years for an outpatient’s review appointment to see a specialist about his/her Lymphedema.

Lymphedema is a disease of the lymphatic system which causes excruciating pain, and massive swelling which reduces the patient’s ability to move.

Two people at Ballarat Base Hospital waited 194** days each for their oncology appointments.

Another patient at Goulburn Valley Health had to wait over 500 days for an orthopaedic outpatient appointment. While two anxious parents faced an 89 day and 84* day wait respectively for Category 1 paediatric clinic appointment.

*As of September 2007

A combined total of regional and metropolitan hospitals bring this secret waiting list to 33 869. This figure is enormous considering that Western Health and few other hospitals failed to provide information, says Mrs Shardey.

As of December 2007 there are 33 869 hidden patients and it is high time the Brumby Government saw to it that these patients are treated in a timely manner.

In metropolitan Melbourne’s a case of waiting on the never-never list when it comes to some of the major hospital’s outpatient waiting lists. At Royal Melbourne Hospital three neurosurgery patients were forced to wait 783 days, 719 days and 671 days respectively for their appointments.

Patients attending Box Hill hospital are also not immune to lengthy waits. The hospital recorded a patient waiting 714 days for an orthopaedics appointment, while five others had to wait between 547 and 672 days for their orthopaedic appointments.**

A cardiology patient was forced to wait 355 days** for an outpatient appointment at St Vincent’s while another patient at St Vincent’s had to wait 301** days to see a doctor about his/her diabetes condition.

How long should sick Victorians be forced to be patient with our crumbling health system, while waiting for care? Our sick deserve better treatment and a Government that fronts up to this mounting health crisis, says Helen Shardey.

No wonder 40 percent of doctors surveyed in the Herald Sun rate the Victorian Health Minister’s performance as below average and called up him to come clean on the inadequacies of the system and why.

The persistent response by the Minister that there is more to be done, pays lip service to the thousands of Victorians waiting for treatment, said Mrs Shardey.

Urgent Surgeries Cancelled

Seriously ill Victorians are having their urgent Category 1 surgeries cancelled on a regular basis, Helen Shardey, Shadow Minister for Health, said today.

Freedom of Information (FoI) documents show that the Brumby Government has been economical with the truth when it claimed that 100 per cent of urgent Category 1 patients were treated within the benchmark time of 30 days. Mr Brumby and his embattled Health Minister have a lot to answer for.

The FoI documents detail the number of Hospital Initiated Postponements (HIPS), which are not reported in the Government’s Your Hospitals report, and show that there are literally hundreds of Category 1 patients who have had their surgeries cancelled or postponed, Mrs Shardey said.

Patients who have encountered a HIP will have already been on a waiting list to receive treatment. Therefore a HIP is another extended period of waiting that in almost all instances is beyond the control of the patient.

Reasons given for these postponements range from no ICU beds being available, overbooked lists or no staff or surgeon available. What is alarming is that there are multiple Category 1 patients who have waited on the HIP list beyond the 30 day benchmark, even though they had already been waiting for some period prior to having their treatment postponed, Mrs Shardey said.

The following hospitals are suffering from a system in crisis as FOI documents* show:

Name of hospital: Category 1 HIPs: No. of patients more than 30 days on HIPS: No. patients more than 30 days prior to HIPS
Royal Melbourne 278 45 79

Monash 89 4 4

Austin Health 164 22 95

St Vincent’s 26 No data provided** No data provided**

The Alfred 48 5 13

Box Hill 86 11 0

Bendigo 14 4 4

Geelong 14 2 0

*These figures relate to a three month period from 1/10/2007 to 31/12/2007
** In all categories in all individual instances, St Vincent’s Hospital was not able to provide patients with a rescheduled admission date or determine the length of waiting time prior to the HIPS.

At the Royal Melbourne Hospital a Category 1 patient requiring urgent neurosurgery was placed on the HIP list with a further delay of 51 days to receive treatment. The reason given for the postponement was that there had been an emergency priority, Mrs Shardey said.

A further 36 Category 1 patients requiring procedures such as vascular surgery, vascular shunt/bypass, amputation of a limb or thoracic surgery were placed on the HIP list without any reschedule date to receive their treatment. This implies an indefinite wait for seriously ill people, Mrs Shardey said.

In Geelong, a Barwon Health Category 1 patient has waited 82 days for urological surgery while
another urgent Category 1 patient at Bendigo Health has been waiting for a TUR obstruction ureter/renal pelvis procedure which has been postponed without any reschedule date. This seriously ill patient had already waited 38 days prior to their postponement.

The situation in metropolitan Victoria is equally as concerning as in regional Victoria.

Austin Health is just as bad with one Category 1 patient waiting 162 days for the replacement of a heart valve. This person’s surgery was cancelled because of an elective priority. A further two Category 1 patients were cancelled at the Austin because there was no surgeon available while one patient waited 98 days for renal dialysis with the procedure being cancelled because of a clerical error.

At Monash Medical Centre two Category 1 patients have waited 52 days for thoracic surgery.

The Alfred Hospital has also postponed urgent surgeries with two Category 1 patients both requiring a bowel resection being placed on the HIP list. One seriously ill patient has waited over 400 days, 113 days on the HIP list and 380 days prior to being postponed. The reason for the postponement was given as elective priority.

The other Category 1 patient has waited 35 days on the HIP list and a further 48 days prior to being postponed. The reason for this postponement was given as ‘unavailability of hospital staff’.

Sick Victorians deserve better treatment and a government that tells them the truth, Mrs Shardey said.

When will Mr Brumby finally realise that our health system is in crisis?