Tough job ahead for new Health Minister
Outgoing Health Minister Yvette D’Ath was a hard worker in a very difficult portfolio and Shannon Fentiman faces a tough job, AMA Queensland President Dr Maria Boulton said.
“On behalf of AMA Queensland, we thank Ms D’Ath for her dedication and cooperation as Health Minister,” Dr Boulton said.
“We have always found her to be genuinely interested in the challenges our healthcare system is facing and committed to finding solutions.
“She took on board and acted on our calls for more hospital beds, for mental health and wellbeing protections for healthcare workers, and finding incentives to recruit and retain the regional health workforce in the best interests of regional communities.
“The crisis in our healthcare system goes beyond one Minister and one government.
“We need the federal government to step up and restore funding to our public hospitals, to commit to real reform of Medicare, and to make it easier for international medical graduates to work in Australia.
“We need all sections of the Queensland government to work together to ensure decisions taken in one area, like tax laws, do not adversely impact the health area by hitting GPs with new patient taxes.
“The ongoing failure of maternity services must be an urgent priority, particularly addressing workforce strategies and ensuring models of care are truly collaborative and multidisciplinary and address the current culture that is seeing doctors leave maternity units.
“Minister D’Ath had begun work on a statewide workforce plan. The new minister must ensure this plan covers not just Queensland Health staff but private hospitals, GPs and other private specialists, and allied health including pharmacists and physios.
“The workforce plan, recruitment and retention must be the key priorities and the new Minister must hold the senior bureaucrats accountable and reform the culture of secrecy that has crept in at Queensland Health.
“We must see an end to proposals that directly affect patient health and safety, like the dangerous North Queensland pharmacy prescribing pilot and anti-competitive pharmacy ownership laws, being negotiated in secret with participants bound by non-disclosure agreements.
“We wish Minister D’Ath well in her new portfolio, and look forward to working with Minister Fentiman on resolving the issues in our healthcare system.”
