Skye Kakoschke-Moore (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question too is to Senator Nash, the Minister representing the Minister for Health. On 3 May 2016, when Senator Nash was the Minister for Rural Health, a motion moved by Senator Xenophon was passed, which noted the tragic death of South Australian woman, Gayle Woodford, who worked as a remote area nurse in the APY Lands in South Australia. The motion called on the government to (1) immediately review the adequacy of current safety measures for remote area nurses; (2) abolish single nurse posts in remote areas, or mitigate the risks they pose; (3) implement a policy that remote area nurses attend out-of-hours emergencies in pairs; (4) require that all emergency services vehicles be fitted with GPS technology; and (5) allocate the necessary funding. Can you please advise what action has been taken by the government to carry out the terms of that motion?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Kakoschke-Moore for her question and also for some advance notice of it. Correctly, I was the minister at the time responsible for this. It was absolutely tragic. It really was a tragic set of circumstances.

The issue around the remote delivery of health care, though, is not one that is primarily a direct responsibility for the Commonwealth. What we see is, predominantly, the Aboriginal medical services delivering that health care to those remote communities. Also, some of the state governments have a role in delivering that health care through those services. A number of the points that Senator Kakoschke-Moore referred to are actually not in the direct purview of the Commonwealth. What we did, though, is recognise how important it was for the Commonwealth to be part of trying to find some solutions to this. On 22 April Minister Ley and I announced $1½ million of extra funding for the Nganampa Health Council because they were facing some immediate challenges after the tragic death of Gayle Woodford. That was around some critical infrastructure and maintenance measures that they had deemed needed to be done. The decisions around the way forward following this tragic circumstance are primarily for those services themselves and those that run them, but we are working very closely with them.

In addition, CRANAplus has been doing a great deal of work in terms of the learning modules and resource materials that are there to address local safety and security issues. They have done some tremendous work around this. We as the government are providing more than $240,000 to the organisation to undertake the work around reviewing the policies and procedures, because it was very much felt that that structure had to be right in terms of improving the circumstances.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Kakoschke-Moore, a supplementary question.

Skye Kakoschke-Moore (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In his short statement in relation to Senator Xenophon's motion, Senator Ryan stated that an urgent roundtable was convened to address this issue. What recommendations were made by the roundtable, and what action has been taken to implement those recommendations?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the minister responsible at the time, I immediately convened a roundtable of all of those across the sector to come together and discuss what was going to be the best way forward. I felt that the advice that I would get from those people directly involved in the sector was going to be the most useful in how we went forward. I wrote to all of the state and territory health ministers at the time given that this was something that had to be responded to in collaboration.

In relation to the senator's question, there were not any specific recommendations that resulted after that meeting, but there was very much a collective view that we needed to address the priorities, particularly as CRANAplus had put them forward, around zero tolerance of violence for every health professional workforce, all of the after-hours call-outs to be accompanied, a national safety working group to be established, work around the work health and safety issues, and working on models to look at duress systems. They put forward some very good proposals that we have collectively been working on. (Time expired)

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Kakoschke-Moore, a final supplementary question.

Skye Kakoschke-Moore (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are remote area nurses now attending out-of-hours emergencies in pairs?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I have indicated, that is not a decision for the Commonwealth to make. What we were very focused on doing, and have been since, is working really closely with those services. As the Commonwealth, we are not going to tell those who run those services what to do. Particularly as minister at the time, I worked very closely with the Indigenous health sector and had—and still do have, even though I am no longer the minister responsible—a great deal of respect for how they run those services and for those organisations that do a great job. So that is a decision for those individual services. We will continue to work very closely. We all want to ensure the safety of our workers in those remote communities. There are specific challenges out there. We in this chamber, I think, all know that those challenges do exist, but the approach that we have taken is collectively working with the states and territories, with the services themselves and with local communities on the ground. We will get the best outcomes for safety for the workers. (Time expired)