Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Is the minister aware of the Rohan McClymont case last week, where the emergency patient waited with a leg broken in two places for nearly a day before a Flying Doctor or aerial ambulance CasEvac could be provided, or a similar case two years before involving suspected serious head and back injuries of Livia Katter that entailed a 16-hour wait? These cases were at Hughenden and Richmond with closed down operating theatres, leaving a population of over 3½ thousand nearly 300 kilometres from their nearest medical facility.

In light of this and the internal Queensland Health papers indicating the economy and ‘outcomes efficacy’ of closing over 100 Queensland country hospitals—proposals already mooted at Babinda, Atherton and Mareeba—and the downgrading of a dozen other hospitals to, at best, medical aid posts, could the minister assure those outside metropolitan Queensland that the federal government’s health plan will not involve any hospital closures or downgrades, and that all existing hospitals and the at present bare-bone service will be maintained at current or improved levels?

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