LABOR REJECTS LNP’S HOSPITAL PRIVATISATION FOCUS IN ROCKY

Media Release

Hospital services in Central Queensland have lurched from crisis to crisis, with Health Minister Lawrence Springborg more focused on selling off hospital services than improving, says Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk.

“Sadly, Rockhampton Hospital has, in the past two years, been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons and has borne the brunt of the LNP’s policy failures,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“In May this year the Vanguard Report exposed failures in clinical governance and patient safety management and earlier this month the Opposition called for a public inquiry into 18 deaths at the hospital."

“This is what happens when a Minister is more interested in cutting jobs and using health services to help the private sector turn a profit, rather than increasing and improving public services."

“We know that hospital medical imaging services are in the process of being privatised. What’s next? What other health services are set to be outsourced? That’s after almost 200 jobs have been slashed from the local health service."

”Our hard-working, dedicated doctors, nurses and allied health professionals don’t need to be undermined by a government that expects them to do more with less and cares more about profits for private companies than it does about quality control."

“The Newman Government’s determination to ‘Americanise’ public health services in Queensland is bad news for patients and nowhere is that more apparent than Rockhampton.”

  

Rockhampton MP Bill Byrne said he feared that hospital pathology and pharmacy services would be next in line for privatisation in Central Queensland.

“Now that doctors are provided by private companies, and radiology services are provided by private companies, how many other parts of the hospital will be outsourced? At what point does it become a private hospital?” he said.

“Surely it can’t be a coincidence that, since the Newman Government started to cut staff, demanded that the local health boards return a profit by cutting patient services, shut-down the Health Quality and Complaints Commission and slashed 100 workers from the statewide Patient Safety Unit, there have been so many problems."

“People in Central Queensland need confidence in the public hospital system, but that confidence has been rocked by events that are a direct consequence of the changes implemented by the Newman Government and the Central Queensland Hospital and Health Board.”