McGinty to vacate Fremantle seat for son-in-law?

McGinty has wasted ALP majority and goodwill in Fremantle

The Desert Rat predicts that time-serving, lame-duck failed Labor leader Jim McGinty will vacate the seat of Fremantle before he completes his current term. McGinty vote in Fremantle collapsed to 38% in the recent state election.

An added factor of the urgency to vacate is the failure of son-in-law Tim Kucera and his opportunistic cabal to takeover the CFMEU. Young Tim needs another sinecure. Kucera's mates were were soundly beaten in the recent ballot by Kevin Reynolds and his team.

The Desert Rat predicts that once the succession of Tim Kucera is locked in, McGinty will resign and Tim Kucera will be the ALP candidate for the Fremantle by-election. The only spanner in the works is that McGinty may think that Fremantle is no longer a safe enough seat for he son-in-law. That view is more a reflection of McGinty's neglect of the Fremantle electorate since elected. Any half-competent member should be able to establish a comfortable ALP majority in Fremantle.

Contrast McGinty's pathetic electoral performance in Fremantle with that of Julian Grill who increased the ALP vote in the strong conservative area of Esperance from 12% to about 50% over two elections whilst a Minister. Since Grill's retirement, the Labor vote in Esperance has dropped back to about 11%.

The same Left faction shambles happened in Kalgoorlie where the left faction member Megan Anwyl managed to lose the seat after wasting the large majority built up by hard-working local member Ian Taylor. Now the Labor vote in Kalgoorlie; once the "jewel in the crown" of Labor is below 20%. Now wonder the left only want safe seats in Parliament.

Fremantle deserves better than "His Irrelevance" McGinty and the sooner he resigns or is shown the door by the ALP, the better.

Ambulance Ramping: McGinty's Problem Shifting

Ambulances now waiting 3000 hours - McGinty shifts the problem.

Ambulances waited outside the Emergency Departments (ED’s) of major Perth hospitals for nearly 3000 hours this year according to a story in yesterday’s “The West Australian”.

What this story doesn’t tell, is that 2500 of these hours were in the last five months. That suggests to the Desert Rat that St John’s Ambulance will spent at least 5000 hours queued outside hospitals this year if ED problems are not fixed.

On three occasions since September, there has been more than 10 ambulances queued outside an Emergency Department (Stage 3 Ramping). Last year ambulances were ramped for 234 hours!

To solve the problem of overcrowding of ED’s, McGinty decided to keep the patients in the ambulance outside hospitals where they are attended to by paramedics. At one of these understaffed and overcrowded ED’s, nurses were often attending to patients on the footpath outside the ED.

Ambulance ramping shows how incompetently Health Minister Jim McGinty is running our health system. Ambulance ramping is McGinty’s solution to the overcrowding of ED’s at major hospitals.

ED’s are understaffed. They have about 20% less registered nurse than their full complement and they can’t hold staff. That’s about 40 nurses short in a major hospital ED and that places enormous pressure on the remaining staff, who become exhausted and burned out. The ED’s are short of doctors as well.

Because of the delays in treatment many nurses and doctors are abused daily in Ed’s. Waiting patients are often in pain, have no food, no water and no toilet facilities.

Because of the stress of overwork and abuse, one major ED lost over 20% of their staff in one month!

“Nursing sucks! The pay's shit. You continually get abused. There’s no thanks or appreciation.” That’s a comment the Desert Rat heard from a frustrated, recently resigned ED nurse who is now driving a truck in the Pilbara. This is a person who once enjoyed nursing, can handle stress and trauma, who now has no interest in returning to the profession.

McGinty, from the Socialist Left is ideologically opposed to the private health system, but his incompetence is driving many people into the private health system. Is this deliberate, designed to take the pressure off the public health system which is now in disarray? And that is despite massive revenue windfall generated by the mining boom!