Shadow Health Minister Mark McArdle joined Stephen Bennett in Bundaberg recently to monitor local health services.
Member for Burnett Stephen Bennett was joined by Shadow Minister for Health Mark McArdle to tour the Bundaberg Base Hospital health facilities today.
Mr McArdle and Mr Bennett said they were pleased to see the local health service continuing to build on the framework implemented by the former LNP government.
“I welcome the Shadow Health Minister to our region again. It’s an opportunity to review and monitor the health services available to our community and ensure we are getting the high standards of care that we expect and deserve,” Mr Bennett said.
“It’s great to see our local health service going from strength to strength as a direct result of the LNP’s major health service overhaul while in government.”
While touring hospital facility today, Shadow Health Minister Mark McArdle called on Health Minister Cameron Dick to release the measures of how Labor’s nurse-patient ratio will actually impact on the quality of patient care provided.
Mr McArdle said Labor’s proposal to legislate the number of patients allocated to a single nurse continued to be raised.
He said there has been a lack of information provided by the Palaszczuk Labor Government to explain how it arrived at the proposed ratio and the data to prove its effectiveness.
“Any effort to increase the number of nurses is of course welcomed however an imposed ratio must be fully explained and the Health Minister seems reluctant to provide any answers,” Mr McArdle said.
“During Estimates in August, I asked the Health Minister about the current modelling for nurse-patient ratios to better understand how they intend to meet the new target.
“The Minister refused to provide the modelling, raising serious questions about what research or scientific evidence Labor is using to determine its policy.
“The Health Minister also refused to provide the data needed to understand how the ratio was decided upon including re-admission rates, infection rates, morbidity rates and mortality rates.
“If the nurse-patient ratio is the cornerstone of the government’s policy, it beggars belief the Health Minister is unable to provide any evidence to back-up his own policy.
“How can Queenslanders be confident the policy will deliver a more productive and efficient hospital without a baseline measure and targets?
“We hope this is not another example of union bosses dictating government policy.
“Instead of having a well thought out plan, is Labor again making it up as it goes along?”
Mr McArdle said we understand one size doesn’t fit all across each hospital in Queensland.
“This model of dictating a nurse-patient ratio limits the ability for individual hospitals to allocate their nurses according to patient need and acuity,” he said.
“This seems to be another example of Labor changing the health system back to centralised control ignoring the fact these local hospital boards have the knowledge and a more thorough clinical understanding of each individual communities’ needs.”
[ENDS] 7 October 2015
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