Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to speak during this time on a situation that is a real scandal—not a confected scandal about an individual using his own funds to support a political party, unlike the forced contributions of unionists all over Australia, particularly those made to the failing Bligh government—namely the state of the hospital system in Queensland. There is no longer any confidence in or support for not only the hospital system but also the minister who administers it—not even from his leader, the Premier. How many times does Mr Rudd have to be told that the Queensland hospital system is in a disastrous mess? It has been since the last election, when Premier Beattie promised, hand on heart and smile on lips—as usual—to fix it and completely failed. It has gone on and on.

In October 2007, Mr Rudd said that if he won the federal election the buck for fixing Queensland’s hospital system would stop with him. I am here to tell Mr Rudd that the buck has well and truly stopped. The Queensland system is near collapse. Yesterday, Dr Chris Davis from the Australian Medical Association of Queensland described the Queensland hospital system as very bloated, very rigid and very politicised. The report that the AMAQ issued at the same time said that most of Queensland’s hospitals were under pressure, despite the record health budget that has been spent—mainly on public servants in the health sector, not on fixing the hospitals.

Yesterday’s report talked about the worst hospitals in Queensland for bed occupancy rates. The Caloundra hospital was at No. 1, with a bed occupancy rate of 119.8 per cent. The desirable rate is 85 per cent—that is considered a safe occupancy rate. No. 2 was Cairns Base Hospital, with an occupancy rate of 101.5 per cent. Mackay Base Hospital was No. 3, with an occupancy rate of 101.3 per cent. Nambour, Logan, Caboolture and Redland hospitals all had unacceptably high occupancy rates.

At the same time, this report from the AMAQ pointed out that Townsville, Cairns and Nambour hospitals had unacceptable waiting times for elective surgery. When looking at long wait lists, keep in mind that that means people who have probably waited more than 90 days for the opportunity to have surgery. That is the list from yesterday. But things move on in Queensland in the hospital system very quickly. Just today the AMA has again, in response to problems raised by its members and by poor old benighted health consumers in Queensland, called for an urgent upgrade to the Rockhampton hospital. Let us put that one on the list today.

Some of the issues that were raised on talkback radio in Queensland today would make your hair stand on end—if we were not already so inured to horror, mishandling, rigidity, bureaucracy, red tape and total failure to help the people that the hospital system is supposed to be there for, the patients. In Rockhampton hospital, a man with a brain tumour was told that he will have to wait a minimum of 24 months to get an MRI to find out if that tumour is benign or aggressive. This gentleman from Rockhampton—