The Hodgman Liberal Government’s plan to fix our broken health system by giving all our major hospitals a dedicated and unique role has been supported on the public record by Rebecca White and the Labor Party.
The North West community need to know that neither Bryan Green or Ms White have asked a single question of me as health minister or raised any concerns since the White Paper was released in June. In fact, they are on the record as being supportive.
Here are Ms White’s own words on the Mersey Community Hospital and the plans for it revealed in the White Paper in June.
“One of the problems we’ve had in the past of course with health reform progressed under Labor in 2007 is that there was a lot of political interference and, dare I say it, from the Liberal Party, because at that time they very vehemently opposed the changes we were proposing, which are very similar to what this Minister’s now trying to implement with his White Paper. We’re not going to act that way. We want to see good outcomes for Tasmanians. We want to see better health outcomes for those people who are waiting on these elective surgery waiting lists. We’re not going to play politics with this.”*
Based on Ms White’s clear position that the changes outlined for the Mersey are important for good health outcomes and are in line with the Labor Party’s own position, I assume her attendance at a Mersey forum tonight is for the purpose of admonishing Senator Lambie and other politicians who are choosing to “play politics” with critical health reform.
Or is she planning to pull out the usual Labor tactic of having two completely opposing positions depending on who she is speaking to?
The Liberal Government’s White Paper has been overwhelmingly welcomed by clinicians, health experts and the general public. We cannot afford to stick with the same broken system we have now.
It’s very important to note that changes will be implemented gradually and only when our hospitals have in place the support and resources to deliver them.
It’s completely incorrect for anybody to imply, as the organiser of tonight’s forum has misleadingly attempted to do, that any patients or services will be redirected from one hospital to another before we are completely assured that the right support is in place. If hospitals taking on additional emergency patients need to open more beds, then this will happen.
I look forward to receiving an implementation plan for the White Paper from the Tasmanian Health Service by the end of this month.
* Rebecca White, ABC Mornings, Monday 29 June 2015