The Labor Party needs to clarify where they stand on health reform.
Are they behind their health spokesperson, who says health reform is necessary and the Liberal Government’s reform is a continuation of Labor’s efforts to fix the health system?
Or are they behind their leader Bryan Green, who is reprising the role of former Labor Braddon member Brenton Best in opposing necessary changes to fix a broken health system?
We know that their former Health Ministers David Llewellyn, Lara Giddings and Michelle O’Byrne all pushed for changes to the services delivered at North West hospitals on the grounds of providing the safest services possible. Although these efforts were not properly carried through, each still supports the proposals they put forward.
Braddon’s Liberal members at the time, Jeremy Rockliff and Brett Whiteley, had the courage to put party politics aside to support Lara Giddings' 2007 reform plans.
“This is a bold initiative and as I have said before it will need leadership, courage, and co-operation from all leaders within the community to ensure the implementation of this plan is successful”, Mr Rockliff said in 2007. (The Advocate, 26 May 2007)
Just as it was a shame that Labor abandoned its 2007 reform plans and by 2011 had resorted to simply cutting services on the North West, it is a great shame that Mr Green has decided that his political strategy will be to scaremonger and revive his former Braddon colleague Brenton Best’s opposition to changes to the North West hospital system.
Mr Green’s statements yesterday and today about the impact of the proposed changes in the White Paper are completely inaccurate. The addition of rheumatology, pain management, specialist geriatrics and neurology clinics on the North West, as well as additional rehabilitation, mental health, palliative services mean that the North West has a range of additional services they don’t have to travel for.
The centralisation of complex surgeries that can’t be safely offered at the North West Regional Hospital is a decision taken on direct clinical advice with the safety of North West patients at heart. We should not be putting people into complex surgeries at a location where the clinical advice says it is unsafe to do so.
It is very concerning that Bryan Green is choosing to ignore clinical advice because he and his strategists see an opportunity to play politics. If Mr Green can raise a specific service or range of services where his expert knowledge is greater than the clinical advice that the Government listens to, then let’s hear it.
I look forward to his party room delivering him a strong rebuke for playing politics with the health and safety of his constituents.