Queensland’s newly installed Health Minister faces a significant challenge to deliver change, while first defusing the bombs left by her predecessor Yvette D’Ath, but there are four issues at the top of that “must fix” list, writes the editor.
Sky News host Liz Storer says Queensland’s cabinet shuffle is a “beleaguered” government’s method to “look like they are doing something when they are really doing nothing”.
This is not a post-pandemic problem, as the government might have you believe. The pandemic surely did not help with things like the state’s ever-ballooning elective surgery waiting list. But these are long-term systemic trends now that will require more than minor tinkering to the way things are done to turn around in any meaningful and sustained way.
That is the significant challenge facing newly installed Health Minister Shannon Fentiman; to deliver change in the medium term while first defusing the bombs left by her predecessor Yvette D’Ath.
Health Minister Shannon Fentiman tours the new Caboolture Satellite Hospital, Caboolture. Picture: Liam Kidston
Four issues were at the top of that must-fix list for Ms Fentiman:
First there were the ongoing issues at the state government-run DNA lab, where staff misled police and manipulated data to force an arbitrary sample limit for testing critical evidence from murders and sexual assault cases – leading to more than 1800 false witness statements in at least 1260 court cases. Three senior staff from the lab have been recently dismissed.
The second is the fact that not only have mums in Gladstone been forced for almost the past year to drive an hour to Rockhampton to give birth with maternity services not being offered locally, but that former Minister D’Ath had refused to meet with the impacted parents. Minister Fentiman travelled there on her first full day in the job.
The third were the frankly shocking series of revelations from whistleblowers in both the Sunday Mail and The Courier-Mail about conditions at the state’s main spinal unit at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. Minister Fentiman went there last Friday, and on Tuesday promised a full overhaul – including a potential relocation.
The fourth significant time bomb left for the new Minister is the fact that, to hide their failings, the pen-pushers in the massive health bureaucracy had started to change the way performance data is being reported publicly. Minister D’Ath had let them do so.
Former health minister Yvette D’Ath. Photo Steve Pohlner
Those chickens came home to roost this week in a Question on Notice from the Opposition that Ms D’Ath had answered about the number of critical “code yellows” at hospitals in recent times. She had responded that, seeing as the data was no longer collated, it would be “an unreasonable diversion of the department’s resources” to reveal the truth to Queenslanders.
We snookered them, thought Ms D’Ath! Not so fast, Ms Fentiman replied on Tuesday – issuing a late-night demand that the Health Department rethink its position after questions from The Courier-Mail that her office had initialled passed on to the department.
Ms Fentiman said: “As noted by the former health minister, the requested data is not collected monthly. I have asked the department to assess how this data can be best managed into the future to ensure that we are providing Queenslanders with transparent and efficient insight into the realities confronting our hardworking health workers.”
We await with interest the outcome of that request, and stand ready to call out Minister Fentiman if she ends up failing to convince her department to change its position.
All in all, this has been a good start by the new Health Minister. We are, however, not naive and also point out that much of what Ms Fentiman has so far “achieved” in the role has been window dressing.
The proof will be in the pudding. But after enduring a Minister for Health who more resembled an ostrich, there is finally some hope for the people of Queensland.