Minister missing in action on hospitals

WHY do we never hear that from Health Minister Michael Ferguson?

Loss of accreditation for emergency medicine training at the Launceston General Hospital, downgrading physician training at LGH, loss of psychiatric training at the Royal Hobart Hospital, threatened loss of anaesthetic training at the North West Regional Hospital.

Under whose watch are all of these occurring? Minister Ferguson.

Why are our hospitals losing accredi- tation? Because there are insufficient numbers of consultants of sufficient quality to mentor trainees to enable them to reach the requisite standard.

If individual specialists are flat chat all the time, they do not have the time to discuss difficult issues and difficult cases with their trainees.

I speak from a substantial experience in these matters. I was Director of Physician Training at the Royal for years and I spent a decade on the national RACP Committee for Physician Training.

The Minister’s answer is to set up a new bureaucratic committee to enable better recruiting.

Bureaucrats do not train medical specialists. Quality training needs quality specialists and you only get those when Tasmanian specialists are treated to the same level of conditions as the other states.