Member for Burnett Stephen Bennett has slammed the State Labor Government for failing to deliver on their 2018 – 2022 Wide Bay Hospital and Health System (WBBHS) Strategic Plan. *
The local MP took to the floor of parliament last night to breakdown the plan and expose a multitude of broken promises.
The 2018 – 2022 WBHHS Strategic Plan, titled Care Comes First, Through Patients Eyes, was co-signed by the current Labor appointed Chair and the previous Chief Executive.
Mr Bennett said you can’t even get through the ‘Welcome Note’ without coming across a slew of failed commitments.
“At the very beginning, the plan outlines seven goals that it will achieve by 2022, not one has been completed,” Mr Bennett said.
“The first goal is that they will improve our community-based services to reduce pressure on our hospitals.
“Sadly, no community services have been developed and no new sub specialists have been appointed since the demise of the medical school. There was a plan to include appointments to diabetes, respiratory medicine, rheumatology and neurology.
“Goal two said they will work towards increasing the level of our care under the Clinical Services Capability Framework to Level 5, to offer sub-specialties and attract high-calibre sub-specialty clinicians.
“This is very important, no new sub-specialty appointments have been made, as the medical program became a pathway.
“Effectively Central Queensland University has developed a couple of courses that enables students to study locally and then go to UQ medical school.
“This is not Wide Bay/ Bundaberg placement, it is entry to medical school only.
“More importantly, because there is no medical programme, University of Queensland did not sign off any professorships of the specialties WBHHS needed to commence new services.
“No professorships and no appointments; they have severely failed in this goal as the posts are not attractive.”
The WBHHS Strategic Plan outlines what the community will see by 2022 on page five.
- Substantial progress towards a new or significantly refurbished Bundaberg Hospital, including increased access to Level 5 services.
- An integrated health campus providing training and research in clinical medicine and allied health
- Increased sub-specialities available in the region
Mr Bennett said clearly, these are all complete and utter failures.
“It states there will be increased access to new level five specialties, yet none have been announced or stated as part of the new business case,” he said.
“There are huge concerns surrounding the currently selected state-owned site for the new hospital regarding space, flight paths and spill off from the runway. This site was rejected in round one for these reasons.
“An alternate site across the road was much larger and provided opportunity for a private hospital, University, and research facilities to be built.
“Point three states there will be increased sub-specialties available in the region, evidently this has not happened.
“As predicted many times, health service delivery is getting worse and proves Labor is losing control of our health system.
“The plan clearly states that WBHHS would improve on their 2018 waiting times of nine months for outpatients, 12 weeks for endoscopy and six months for surgery.
“Shocking we saw the complete opposite outcome with the board putting finance above quality of care when they changed the target back to one year for each category, before COVID-19 was even an issue.
“If this isn’t evidence of the Palaszczuk Government’s complete an utter failure to deliver on their promises, I don’t know what is.”
Mr Bennett said it’s now more important than ever we see in depth community consultation with any new WBHHS Strategic Plan.
“We know that a new strategic plan is now on the cards but we’re yet to hear of any public consultation,” he said.
“Communication is key and I’m calling on the Minister for Health to make sure our community gets what it deserves and has a say in the future of our health services.”
For more a detailed breakdown of the 2018 – 2022 WBHHS Strategic Plan, please see the attached document from Mr Bennett.
* Link to 2018 – 2022 WBHHS Strategic Plan: https://www.health.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0038/848837/WBHHS-Strategic-Plan-2018-22.pdf
ENDS.
15/09/2021