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

In strongly endorsing the words of the member for Leichhardt, I note that we had a situation in Townsville where there were only three surgeons who were able to do heart surgery. I can speak from personal experience on this because I have been rushed to Townsville for emergency surgery. The previous member for the electorate of Herbert also had to have emergency surgery in Townsville, and the state minister and Speaker of the Assembly, also from Townsville, had to have emergency surgery there too. So it is very common. Due to exactly the same sorts of things that the member for Leichhardt was referring to—petty, vicious, personal vendettas; that is the only word that I can use to describe them—we were left with one single doctor practising. He happened to be the doctor that operated on me, and we checked him out. I am related to a family with a hundred doctors in it, and we checked this bloke out. His name is Mo Diqer, and he is one of the better, arguably one of the best, heart surgeons in the country. His figures in each of the categories are exceptionally high. His survival rates are very, very high indeed, arguably higher than those of anyone except four others in the entire country. But he was under venomous and vicious attack—exactly the same type as Chatoor was under in Cairns—just through the petty prejudices of people who do not have to live there and whose lives are not at risk from us being bereft of specialist care.

The last set of figures I looked at was for the Edmonton area. In the cities of Australia we have one doctor per 300 people. In the country as a whole we have one doctor per 600 people. We have one doctor per 2,000 people in the southern end of Cairns.

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