Opposition elective surgery claims don’t stack up

The opposition is distorting elective surgery waiting times as part of its latest fear campaign, Health Minister Stephen Robertson said today.

Mr Robertson said the opposition was using misleading figures from the latest Queensland Health report card to pursue a dishonest political agenda.

“The opposition has been caught out manipulating elective surgery waiting list figures to suit its own political purposes,” Mr Robertson said.

“This is part of a dishonest fear campaign being run by Lawrence Springborg and Mark McArdle.

“The most accurate measure of elective surgery performance are the year-on-year statistics, and this is acknowledged nationally as the appropriate way to judge health system performance.

“Certain times of year will see increases in hospital activity – for example, there’s a general spike in emergency department presentations in the peak winter demand period.

“Scheduled Christmas ward closures can also lead to decreases in elective surgery activity during the summer months.

“The fact is that Queensland has the shortest elective surgery waiting times in Australia.

“The December quarter 2008 Public Hospitals Quarterly Performance Report shows a 6.8 per cent increase in the number of elective surgery patients treated since the December 2007 quarter – that’s an extra 1,950 patients.

“Mark McArdle and Lawrence Springborg clearly don’t understand how Queensland’s public hospitals work.

“This is symptomatic of the opposition’s ignorance about our public health system and further evidence that Queenslanders can’t trust the old National Party.”

Mr Robertson said the Bligh Government was committed as part of its Toward Q2 strategy to delivering Queenslanders the shortest public hospital waiting times in Australia.

“Our successful Surgery Connect program is helping us to deliver more elective surgery operations in the private sector at no cost to the public patient,” he said.

“This is a policy which is opposed by the opposition - a further sign of how out of touch Lawrence Springborg and Mark McArdle are with the health needs of Queenslanders.”

MEDIA: Martin Philip 3225 2680