SYDNEY — NSW Health apologises for rural healthcare.
Apologies, apologies, apologies — all hollow and so repetitive. What do apologies do? What have apologies done? Condition us into substandard acceptance? What about fixing our health system instead of apologising ad infinitum for its maladministration and cover-ups?
The NSW Parliament Legislative Council inquiry into “Health and Hospital Services in Rural Regional and Remote NSW” closed today.
The committee opened the inquiry with NSW Ministry of Health’s No 1 apologist mouthpiece deputy secretary Dr Nigel Lyons and saw fit to close the inquiry today giving the same mouthpiece another go.
Dr Lyons says the “evidence had been very difficult to listen to”. Is he kidding? What does Dr Lyons think the Medical Error Action Group receives each day on our hospital system? That everything is hunky-dory? He is kidding.
If MEAG knows what is going on in hospitals, then the NSW Ministry of Health knows a heck of a lot more and its screw-ups demand more than another apology.
Dr Lyons did not get to hear the truth publicly because the Committee didn’t want to receive it, hear it or deal with it, judging by the heavy redactions of most submissions.
Regrettably Dr Lyons remains misinformed because he cannot check facts. The Committee didn’t do its homework to enable to challenge Dr Lyons’ misinformation at the beginning of the inquiry.
MEAG investigated two particular cases where the hospitals ran out of Panadol and reports of such are verified in the very medical records contained by NSW Health. These hospitals were Dubbo and Tamworth. This is an example of Australia’s world class health system.
The Committee lacked courage to ask pertinent questions and didn’t want to hear unpalatable truths. Committee members — all on a handsome sitting inquiry bonus — didn’t want to venture into ‘troubled waters of the whys, the wherefores, the hows’ as that would require listening to people who know the truth and facts.
The outcome of this inquiry is normalisation of malfeasant health administration as the standard.
“Regrettable patient experiences and outcomes” indeed.