March 18, 2015
Member for Nanango Deb Frecklington says she is extremely disappointed in the State Government’s move to axe the “Wait Time Guarantee” introduced by the previous government.
She said that although the Wait Time Guarantee had been operating for just one month (February), local Hospitals had shown “outstanding results”.
“This was Australia’s first elective surgery guarantee, and was modelled on the health systems of Scandinavia. It started on February 1 but unfortunately under Labor, will not continue,” Mrs Freckington said.
“At Kingaroy and Toowoomba Hospitals in February, 100 per cent of patients received their surgery on time across all categories – urgent, semi-urgent and non-urgent,” she said.
“It just doesn’t make any sense why Labor would want to scrap Australia’s first surgery guarantee, especially when it was delivering for patients.
“While I know a lot more had to be done, waiting lists in our region had decreased.
“For example, the dental wait list at Kingaroy went from eight years down to two years, which I think is an excellent achievement.”
Mrs Frecklington said that at no point before the election did Labor indicate the policy would be scrapped.
“I will be working alongside my colleagues when we return to Parliament next week to request the new Health Minister, Cameron Dick, reconsider his decision to deny patients access to this guarantee,” she said.
“We will be moving a Parliamentary motion to keep the surgery guarantee. The LNP will not stand by and let Labor put patients at risk.
“I also will be highlighting what an excellent job the Darling Downs Hospital and Health Board have done over the past three years.”
Earlier this week, Mr Dick described fears the independence of local health boards was under threat by Labor as “irresponsible” and a “baseless scare campaign” by the LNP and Shadow Health Minister Mark McArdle.
