Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have here correspondence from one my constituents, Dr Adrian Frick, a dentist in my electorate, the son of a cane farmer, to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. It's with regard to Mr Frick's survival of a massive heart attack on 8 March 2022. I seek leave to table this correspondence.

Leave not granted.

This is outrageous. This is actually correspondence from a constituent thanking the workers at the Friendlies Society Private Hospital, including Dr Wittmer and Dr Conradie. To tell you how serious it is—this is someone with some health background—he experienced, in his own words, 'a cracker of a heart attack that was statistically unsurvivable'. He survived because the Bundaberg cardiology unit was available in Bundaberg, but they now can't get more cardiologists, because they don't have DWS in a regional area. The solution from the federal Public Service and the health minister—and we have corresponded many times—is apparently that Dr Wittmer, Dr Conradie and others should stop doing calls, stop working weekends and stop saving lives, because that will bring down the claim statistics for Medicare, which are measured to determine if there is DWS. We need this assistance. We need this system to continue. We need to continue cardiac services. They cannot secure additional cardiologists. I again seek leave to table this letter.

Leave not granted.