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+--- Thread: Queensland's Department of Health vs remote area nurses (/thread-2415.html)
Queensland's Department of Health vs remote area nurses - jfish1936 - 03-29-2008
I worked under this department once.
It has the problem of being the property of ministers either on their way up to higher things, or those on their way down.
Also, we have renounced the "Westminster Principle" that a minister is RESPONSIBLE for his department; it's just a salary increase for someone in political favour.
We lived with the department's "weasel words"; I was horrified by their treatment of a young doctor who was in trouble after the death of a patient:
1/. policy dictated that hospital admissions from emergency departments be kept to a minimum;
2/. therefore, he observed the patient for some time, and sent her home;
3/. she there died, possibly preventably had she been admitted.
Though the result was the result of a junior doctor acting in accord with the policy from above, the department ran for cover, insisting that the doctor provide his own defence, and that they would pick up the tab IF he proved his own innocence.
In the "medical protection insurance" debacle of a few years ago, we received a letter from QHealth which seemed to offer us protection; careful reading showed that again, we would have to prove ourselves blameless first, then they would assist us.
One can hardly blame the nurses for refusing to trust assurances that problems of years' standing will be rectified "soon" ot that "we are concerned to fix this problem".
The nurses have a problem; QH didn't, until the threat of withdrawal; only that threat makes it QH's problem, and therefore justifies the spending that will fix it.