Healthy debate about health, or not?
sue August 2nd, 2008
Hats off to Kerry Winsor. Your presentation at the Chamber of Commerce (COC) breakfast last week was an eye opener. Kerry has taken our health service by the scruff of the neck and given it a huge shaking. How far our health service has come in 3 short years is quite amazing. We have many more qualified medical professionals working across our hospitals and we have a system of checks and double checks that makes me confident that I will receive excellent care if I have to visit our hospital. Let’s not forget that Kerry arrived at a time when the Fraser Coast hospitals were at crisis point.
At the COC breakfast Kerry calmly and professionally outlined the advances made since her arrival and reminded us that her first priority was actually fixing our health service rather than sitting in an office and writing a grand plan! I am thankful that she took that approach. Plans are all but useless if you don’t have the resources and will to implement them. I expect that the main points a Fraser Coast health plan needs to mention are ‘To help make sick people well and to decide what specific areas of health care expertise we can support in the Fraser Coast hospitals. Kerry is delivering on both those issues.
I am proud to have Kerry living and working in our community and I wish that the members of the Health Focus Group (HFG), together with our community, would support her and her staff. I was quite saddened by the critical nature of the speech by Dr Paul Cotton of the HFG at the breakfast. I expect my COC to offer support and give thanks to hard working professional members of our community rather than do the opposite. Resourcing our health service is the responsibility of our politicians and maybe any criticism needs to be directed to them. Our health service is in immensely better health than it was just 3 short years ago. Yes we still have problem areas and aged care needs a shake up also, but Kerry I believe you are doing a great job in trying circumstances and I thank you.
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- Comments(5)
Sue,
Your site needs attention. Cannot comment on some topics, tells me pafe is not available!!!
Sadman
11/8/08
It is interesting to hear a different side to the story as the local paper has rarely had anything good to say about our local hospitals and their management.
Sad to say it but my family too has had a very poor experience with the Maryborough hospital - we still can’t and won’t go public with the details however the way we were treated at the time was particularly shameful and our GP was horrified as it was the second occurence of the same treatment by one of his patients in one week!
In all honesty, most of our experiences with the health system have been great - and the response by Hervey Bay Base Hospital staff in the following day of our situation was nothing but first class. However, some individuals in the system should hang their heads in shame!
Thanks for your story Ben. I think one of lifes dilemmas is that no matter how good a system (or systems) governments, businesses and organisations etc put in place, at the end of the day our opinion of them comes down to the ability and behaviour of their employed staff. One staff person can undo the reputation of an entire organisation. Conversely good staff can enhance the reputation and our experience of an organisation. The challenge is to ensure that staff performance is monitored and bad performance dealt with. How to best do this raises a whole new topic for debate. Cheers, Sue
It was good to see Queensland Health finally bring down ‘the chop’ on the beaurocrats in the hospital system.
Like the F.C.R.C. three different health districts have been amalgamated into one and in control of 1 CEO which can only make it more efficient.Sue I cannot understand the title “Healthy debate about health, or not”? Debate is about accepting different points of view and coming up with a “consensus” that satisfies both sides and the general public.
“Healthy debate about health” would of sounded more reasonable under the circumstances regarding this issue.
I was referring specifically to the Chamber of Commerce Breakfast forum that was not run like a debate at all. I attended and thought it was quite unprofessional in the way it was done. It wasn’t a debate but more an opportunity for some members to ‘attack’ Ms Kerry Winsor in what I thought, was an unfair manner. By the time Kerry was given an opportunity to defend allegations made against the local Health Service, of which she is in charge, many of the attendees had left to go to work! Yes a ‘proper debate’ would have been more enlightening I think.