Rosalie Woodruff MP | Greens' Health spokesperson
The Health Minister should release the report into the operations of the Tasmanian Health Service Executive, so Tasmanians can have the full picture of what’s going on in our hospitals. He cannot refuse to release the report, and the likely damning evidence of the poor senior management culture it is expected to contain.
There’s unlikely to be any surprises in the Deloitte report, just further confirmation of Minister Ferguson and the THS Executive’s inaction on warning signs and alarms raised by staff in frontline hospital services over the past two years.
It’s Michael Ferguson, as Health Minister, who remains solely responsible for the gross failures within the health system he manages.
The Liberals cannot use the timing of this report, commissioned by the Department of Premier and Cabinet just before an election, as a scapegoat. If the findings are what most Tasmanians would expect, they are to be laid at Michael Ferguson’s feet, as the Minister who ignored chronic problems and refused to listen to the pleas of clinicians and staff.
The Hodgman Government has been repeatedly warned about the damage his centralised and bunkered THS Executive has wreaked on the functioning of our three major hospitals. The Health Minister refused to meet with major health stakeholders to do timely and collaborative planning for the emergency departments in each hospital before last winter and the anticipated flu season.
The pain and misery of people who have not received timely care due to mismanagement and underfunding of the health system, rests with Michael Ferguson as the Minister for Health.