Grievance Debate

COUNTRY HEALTH CARE PLAN

The Hon. R.G. KERIN (Frome) (14:35): Again today the Country Health Care Plan has been a major topic for discussion within this place. While some of the Labor Party members are present, I remind them that there is a rally at Norwood on Saturday morning on the Country Health Care Plan. This provides them with the opportunity to come along and to listen to the concerns of country and city people alike about what has been put forward. I have attended quite a few meetings, including one in Renmark last night.

One of the big issues that is really upsetting people—and this is probably as much a health department issue as a government issue—is the lack of respect that has been shown to the GPs. The fact that the GPs are also making the same statements which we are making and which the government says are lies, by implication the government is calling many of these country GPs liars. These are guys who understand clinically what happens in these hospitals. They have read the plan and they know what the agenda of the department is, but when they tell their communities, they have been accused of misleading their communities and not telling the truth. On top of the fact that they were not consulted, which showed an enormous disrespect for these GPs who do a fantastic job in rural areas, I think the government's accusations of their spreading mistruths is very unfortunate and totally unfair.

The doctors know the facts. The minister has been running around making all sorts of statements over the past three or four weeks, which are totally inconsistent with what the plan says. This is a matter of minimising the fallout politically: it is not changing the agenda of the department whatsoever. The member for Little Para stood up to the department quite often. She would understand that people within the department have an agenda. The government is not in control of that agenda. The government is saying that we have to cut the cost of country health, but the agenda is being run very much by half a dozen or so senior bureaucrats in the Public Service. As a result, the Country Health Care Plan is ill-conceived, badly written, incorrect, inaccurate and lacking in detail. I would not be surprised if the government says that, in the next week or two, it will throw the plan in the bin.

Country communities and country doctors now realise that the Country Health Care Plan has exposed the agenda of senior people within the department as to where they want to take country health over the next 10 years. Those bureaucrats have rolled this minister on several occasions before and they will roll him again. Their stated agenda is that, in 10 years' time, the 43 listed hospitals will not have an acute care bed between them. The plan might go away, but the minister has made some statements about 'services will stay'. Every statement the minister has made has been a qualified statement. He talks about workforce, safety and standards.

The bureaucrats who have this agenda to get rid of acute care beds in those 43 hospitals control many of those things. When we lose a doctor, people in the department can actively discourage other doctors from taking their place. They also control the budgets and their equipment. The rural doctors tell me that, from what they have been told, there is significant money for the four regional hospitals in the forward budgets but nothing for any of the other hospitals. What you will find is that, through lack of equipment, not just the 43 but the other 11 or 12 on the second tier will really battle to meet the required standards.

All in all, I think the agenda of the department, which has been backed by the government, is now absolutely clear. We are past the stage where tearing up the plan solves the problem. We have a situation now where the agenda has been exposed and we need a pro-active plan about how the government will ensure that those country hospitals can provide services; how the department will work hard to ensure they have staff; and how country health will be operating across South Australia into the future.

The current agenda has become very clear and people are very worried. They ask: who wrote the plan? That answer has never been given. That question has been asked at virtually every meeting I have attended, yet no-one has been willing or able to answer the question about who are the authors of this ill-conceived and inaccurate plan.

Time expired.