Fong Hits Back at McGinty

Jim McGinty has begun to realise his health "reforms" aren't what he thought.

Neil Fong's comments in the Sunday Times (25 May 2008) echo a sentiment expressed by the Desert Rat in an earlier post.

He said the McGinty - Carpenter Government had an unwarranted obsession with cutting ribbons on "sexy" new buildings rather than tackling the real cause of problems in our health system. He said the Government (read McGinty) had unrealistic expectations.

The comments reflect McGinty's obsession with new building "throw-away" hospitals all over the State. In the process he has junked many solidly built functional hospitals that were adequate for the jobs, replacing them with high maintenance, short life span, gyprock "Taj Mahals" - monuments to waste, that will fall apart in 20 years. The Kimberley is a classic example where new hospitals are understaffed and what's more, the staff don't stay. New buildings often don't have the character of what they replace and staff do not have that sense of identity that comes with heritage.

Echoing the Desert Rat's earlier post, Fong said, "The major health reform is not building new hospitals, it is ensuring people remain well and do not need hospitals in the first place. It is ensuring people stay well."

In a side swipe at McGinty's expectations, Fong said the long-term change process was never going to happen in three years.

Already all of McGinty's metropolitan building plans are in disarray. Royal Perth will still be there in 20 years. Princess Margaret Childrens' Hospital is in crisis and will not be co-located with the overstretched King Edward Memorial Womens' Hospital. The proposed Fiona Stanley Hospital costs have blown out from $451 million to $1760 about 6 month's ago and still no contract has been awarded for construction and the new Hospital was to have been open in 2010, It is at least 4 to 5 years behind McGintys announced timetable.

With such an incompetent Health Minister in Jim McGinty who think masses of new health legislation and new understaffed country hospitals and an unrealistic "vision" for new city hospitals, readers will see why the Desert Rat has been reluctant to criticise Fong, other than for his ridiculous salary which McGinty was stupid enough to pay him, in his desperation to achieve his "Grand Vision" - which is now in expensive tatters.

The real mystery is, why did Fong bother to stay. Was it misplaced loyalty that was not reciprocated?

McGinty's Left - Paralysed by Political Correctness

Aboriginal Policy Paralysed in the ALP

The evidence given by former Federal indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough to Coroner Alister Hope who is examining suicides among young Aboriginal people in the Kimberley, really highlights the inability of the State Labor Governments to tackle these issues.

Brough told the coronal inquest that the WA Department of Indigenous Affairs (DIA) was "deaf, dumb and blind" when it came to addressing the needs of Aboriginal communities. Brough said DIA and successive State ministers have known children are living in squalid conditions but fail to act because they are scared to do anything about the issues, because of political correctness.

The Desert Rat agrees that this attitude is racist because as the Government would remove white children if they were living in these conditions and subjected to abuse.

For 30 years Labor Governments have been paralysed by their own Left ideology on Aboriginal policy. The McGinty Socialist Left opposed police stations in large communities despite persistent calls by Aboriginals for police stations. The Desert Rat was told by one Left minister that Aboriginal people don't want police. It would appear that paedophiles, grog runners and wife bashers had the ear of that Minister.

Massive fraud and embezzlement in Aboriginal communities has been ignored, because it would reflect badly on Aboriginal Corporations. There have never been any prosecutions to the Desert Rat's knowledge. The Left washed their hands by using the slogan "self-determination" and nothing happened. The Aboriginal people through self-determination were then responsible for their own failure.

Attendance at school really become voluntary under Alan Carpenter when he was minister for Education and what little structure that was in Aboriginal life, was removed.

Carpenter was Minister for Aboriginal Affairs for three years and during that time he was bewildered and lost. He hasn't any idea of how to tackle the problems. Carpenter wanted to keep the Casey Report secret and the Casey Report wasn't released until pressure from The West Australian and others making Freedom of Information requests. It turned out that Julian Grill had made a submission to the inquiry. He was prepared to make his ideas public. Was that why Carpenter wanted the report suppressed?

Casey recommended the DIA be axed. Carpenter was against that and also ignored the recommendations of John Sanderson' report. A year later still nothing has happened.

Carpenter, McGinty and the Labor Government have no plans, no initiative, no ideas.

Any member of the Labor Party who called for abused children to be removed from communities or who supported food vouchers for irresponsible parents over the last 30 years, would have been sent to Coventry, dis-endorsed and excommunicated from the Labor Party.

Criticism of the Left's Aboriginal policy ideology - was politically incorrect. The Left has controlled this disastrous agenda for 30 years and have been slow in realising it has been destructive and hasn't worked. The problem is that McGinty, McHale and Carpenter and other of the Left, are ideologically paralysed. They don't know what to do and don't want to take advice and want to suppress others views.

McGinty Recycles CCC Deputies

Merry-go-round appointments at the CCC?

The Desert Rat read with interest that Jim McGinty had appointed his favourite lawyer Gail Archer SC to the position of Deputy Commissioner of the Corruption and Crime Commission. That is not strange as McGinty seems to get her to do everything these days as revealed in a previous post. Ms Archer is McGinty's appointment on the Medical Board of WA which cover some politically sensitive matters within his Health Ministry.

What is strange is that The Desert Rat was under the impression that Neil McKerrarcher SC and Mark Shanahan SC were the Deputy Commissioners to doddering Dad's Army Commissioner Major General Roberts-Smith.

There has been no announcement that McKerrarcher and Shananhan have resigned or been sacked by McGinty. The Desert Rat thinks they may have got in first and resigned because of the embarrassment the CCC incompetence has caused them or perhaps their views about the contents of CCC reports were being ignored and overridden by others at the CCC with a political agenda? The other possibility is they have been sacked because they could not accomodate the strange concept of making findings in CCC reports without evidence.

Either way they are no longer Deputy Commissioners it would appear and there has been some falling out that has not been made public. It is clear that McKerrarcher's (and Judge Hammond's) views were completely overridden in the rewrite of the Smith's Beach Report by CCC staff.

The Desert Rat thinks these changes in the Deputy Commissioners shows that all is not well down at the CCC. Especially when they are replaced by McGinty's favourite lawyer. Let's hope Gaill Archer shows her independence and spine, and stands up to Goons down at Dad's Army.

McGinty Fails Princess Margaret Hospital

Princess Margaret Hospital for Children (PMH) suffers, as McGinty wastes the massive health budget.

It is doubful if hapless and hopeless Health Minister Jim McGinty will deliver on his 2006 promise to relocate PMH. PMH is badly run down and Health Minister McGinty has failed to properly provide for Western Australia's major Children's Hospital despite massive increases in funding for health.

McGinty's "vision" for PMH received much fanfare but nothing, as usual, has happened. Staff have been left up in the air - their expectations dashed. The commitment was all talk; undeliverable by this incompetent Minister, who has got poor value from the massive health dollars he has been given.

Fiona Stanley Hospital, his flagship, hasn't been started and the cost has blown out from $451 million to $1760 million. No wonder with McGinty's incompetence there is no money for PMH.

Recent publicity about PMH having to send a child east for routine heart surgery is not the first scandal. Children have been sent east on many other occasions for the treatment they should get in booming Western Australia. There is a lack of theatre space at PMH, a shortage of theatre staff and a lack of beds.

McGinty has failed to allow for the 20% growth in the birth rate which is putting extra pressure on PMH. PMH has not been funded for the increase in demand and cannot cope.

The number of theatres needs to be expanded from five to seven - it has the same number of theatres as in 1985 and the intensive care unit is inadequate.

If there is a flu epidemic this winter it could well tip PMH over the edge. McGinty's negligence will then be exposed.

Many staff leave PMH because of a lack of on-site parking and the difficulty finding parking in nearby areas and having to walk long distances to their car. Many women on shift work have to expose themselves to danger late at night. Parking will worsen when the new football statium construction begins. It is a shambles.

Recently more car park spaces were lost because of more ad hoc additions. McGinty still hasn't produced his promised vision for the replacement of PMH which is too cramped. Many staff are accommodated in buildings off-site requiring them to walk back an forth to the hospital for consultations and patient visits. McGinty's silence is deafening when there is bad news around.

As well as cardiac services operating in an outdated model, infection control standards are known to be inadequate. There is inadequate room for staff in which to work.

When these criticisms are raised in the media, what do we get from McGinty - silence. McGinty should stop hiding like a wimp and explain his agenda for PMH to the public. Some of us suspect he is too preoccupied by the internal politics of the Labor Party where the main distractions are dishing the out patronage and securing influential positions and intimidating and destroying other members of other ALP factions that get in the way.

Politics has become a game. Power becomes an end in itself, not a means to building a stronger society - especially for our sick and disadvantaged children.