Bureaucrats choke life from health care
24.01.2004
PREMIER Peter Beattie told Queensland on January 13 that he was calling a state election because he needed a mandate to address the shameful shortcomings in relation to the care of children in need in Queensland.
He was responding to an investigation by the Crime and Misconduct Commission into the abuse of children in foster care.
The commission's report and another late last year said the most neglected and abused of all were Aboriginal children.
Whereas gross under-resourcing of the Families Department has been identified as a major contributor to the shameful situation, another major contributor is escaping unscathed.
The bureaucracy in the Health Department is about to be put under the microscope by medical professionals who have had enough of being pushed around and made scapegoats for diminished patient care -- while the bloated administration takes more and more resources.
There is no department more secretive than Queensland Health. Its reaction to public criticism is to strike back at the accuser, not to address the problem. If Beattie truly wants to sort out the health problems in Queensland, he has first to sort out the bullies and empire-builders in this department.
A snapshot of what is to come regarding bureaucratic accountability can be seen in Cairns, where a group of health professionals has banded together to lobby for equitable allocation of health spending. A particular concern of the group is the plight of Aboriginal and Islander people in Cape York and the Torres Strait.
This newspaper has regularly highlighted the wonderful work of doctors and nurses who dedicate their lives to deliver health services to people on remote communities. But their job is made almost impossible by Queensland Health restrictions and petty bureaucracy.
On November 23, 2003, Dr Lara Wieland wrote to Beattie. She had spent almost three years as one of two alternating resident doctors on Kowanyama community in Cape York.
Wieland took it upon herself to inform Beattie and his ministers of the true problems on the communities -- particularly the extent of child abuse and neglect, and the effects of alcoholism in the communities. Her special interest was with fetal alcohol syndrome -- children born to mothers with an alcohol addiction.
late last year, she put a list of needs and solutions to Prime Minister John Howard when he visited Aurukun community.
That's when Wieland's problems began. She was seen as a whistleblower -- telling the public of the shortcomings of health delivery to indigenous people.
Queensland Health and the Families Department reacted by attacking her. The result was that she resigned her position -- and Cape York lost a dedicated professional. Other doctors who know Wieland and respect her dedication offered their support.
In her November 23 letter, Wieland wrote: ``Many of the issues of concern were the direct and indirect responsibility of the state Health Department. I have received absolutely no direct response or inquiries from anyone in the Health Department about any of the issues. In fact, the only response that I believe has been received is that I hear senior Queensland Health staff have issued verbal directives for me to be sacked or `got rid of' and to have them peruse my personnel files looking for dirt to discredit me, simply because I told the truth.''
She has received from Beattie's office the usual mirror response -- ``We'll look into it.''
This is a woman who, along with colleagues, has made the effort to produce detailed documents to prevent and treat child abuse, alcoholism and trauma on indigenous communities.
It is the same woman who impressed Tony Fitzgerald, QC, two years ago during his study of justice issues on remote communities by giving up a day of her honeymoon to be interviewed.
In material she has passed on to authorities since she resigned she states: ``I have tested children for STDs and then had Queensland Health staff ring me. One example where I had a positive chlamydia on a six-year-old girl, I was phoned by QH and I genuinely felt I was being intimidated and bullied into not reporting this case to DFS. I was interrogated as to why I had done the test in the first place and then lectured on the rate of false positives. I argued this was a high prevalence population and how did we know anyway as we had never screened this population?
`I WAS told it was very likely to be a false positive and was warned against reporting. A swab confirmed the positive result. Another instance involved a six-year-old boy who also tested positive to chlamydia who disclosed he had been sexually abused by another boy. I was rung by a QH sexual health staff member who attempted to persuade me that this was normal sexual play for kids and shouldn't be followed up.
``QH had strong arguments with the pediatrician over this incident and it got to the point where he had to get the police to tell QH they would prosecute someone who did not report abuse as QH was trying to discourage reporting.
``QH nurses also made it very clear that they felt intimidated to not report child abuse or STDs in children. They were also told they could no longer test for STDs in children although they are allowed to do all other tests.''
More and more of the doctors involved have left Queensland Health and are, like Wieland, in a position to speak out because they cannot be threatened by the bureaucrats.
These people have credibility.
We might, at last, be entering a period of honesty and accountability in regard to Queensland Health.
