Jillian Skinner MPMember for North Shore |
 |
|
Monday 24 March 2008
MORRIS IEMMA HAS FORM ON DOCTORING HEALTH STATS: COALITION
Morris Iemma has form on doctoring health statistics and cannot be believed when his Government claims the problems are isolated, NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell and Shadow Health Minister Jillian Skinner said today.
The Iemma Government has today confirmed Gosford Hospital has been referred to the ICAC over the doctoring of emergency department waiting time statistics.
Back in 2003, the then Health Minister Morris Iemma was also forced to refer claims about doctoring the surgery waiting list to the ICAC.
The investigation found waiting lists at five hospitals – Prince of Wales, Bankstown, St George, St Vincent’s and Sydney – all falsified records of data ahead of the 2003 Election.
On 30 April 2003, Morris Iemma told Parliament: “These measures will send a clear message to area health CEOs and hospital CEOs that waiting list data must be as accurate as humanly possible… we can have greater confidence in our waiting list data, not only on their accuracy but also on the underlying performance they measure.”
A subsequent September 2003 Auditor-General report into waiting lists criticised the Labor Government for a lack of funding preventing the better collection of accurate statistics (page 72). The Auditor-General also found that shortly after the announcement of his investigation the number of long-wait patients increased by 31% reversing a two-year declining trend (page 33).
“Morris Iemma cannot be believed when he says the doctoring of records is an isolated incident given it’s happened before under his watch,” Mrs Skinner said
“It’s also suspicious that Mr Iemma and Health Minister Reba Meagher are refusing to release copies of these audit reports.
“If they were only isolated incidents, what has Reba Meagher got to hide? Why does’t the Iemma Government release the audit reports for public scrutiny?
“The Iemma Government has a culture of denying problems exist, instead of acknowledging them and then setting about fixing them. The systemic problems in the NSW Health system will not fixed until there is a willingness to recognise inadequacies exist,” Mrs Skinner said.