SYDNEY: NSW Premier Mike BAIRD claims Health Minister Jillian SKINNER is the “best health minister”. God help all of us. He might want to try out one of HER hospitals and see how he fares.
Premier BAIRD claiming he’s saving thousands of dogs’ lives, but doesn’t give a damn for patients being killed and injured in our hospitals.
Both BAIRD and SKINNER are DEAD WRONG!
NSW Health Minister’s perfect hospital
Patient whose breast ‘exploded’ after implant surgery calls for greater transparency of doctor’s history
ABC News A
Medical reporter Sophie Scott & national reporting team’s Rebecca Armitage
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-10/calls-for-transparency-of-doctors-legal-settlement-history/7704520
MEDIA RELEASE
Monday 8 August 2016
2016.08.08 MEAG MEDIA RELEASE – NSW Health Minister misled Parliament (website)
Yes indeed, New South Wales Health Minister the Honourable Jillian Skinner MP is in her own Emergency Department on life support.
She continues to play “I’m for patients” game. But her record illustrates a different story.
Minister Skinner said she was doing everything she can to look after the patients caught up in the scandals.
Patients caught up in scandals? She means she’s caught up in scandals. The patients are the ones who get injured and killed. She’s the one waiting to be caught.
NSW Health ‘failed my baby son and then covered up after he died’
Sandra Bernobic watched with disgust as some NSW Health officials broke into smiles at the coronial inquiry into the death of her baby boy when a medical expert declared it was likely he would have died even if he had been given antibiotics to treat his meningitis.
READ FULL STORY:
MEAG NOTE: This is one of the cases the Medical Error Action Group wrote to Health Minister the Hon Jillian Skinner MP repeatedly about, of which she ignored, and misled the NSW Parliament on 3 August 2016.
The Medical Error Action Group received a letter from NSW Minister for Health the Hon Jillian Skinner MP on 3 August 2016, but only after she read it in Parliament and distributed it to the media.
This is the first correspondence received from the Minister or her Ministry in almost 5 years, which states that ‘each matter has been resolved through correspondence with involved parties which at times may not have included the Medical Error Action Group’.
This is untrue. The Minister continues to mislead the public.
St Vincent’s Hospital chemo under-dosing scandal spreads to other hospitals
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-03/plan-to-probe-nsw-cancer-chemo-under-dosing-unrealistic:doctor/7684224
NEW SOUTH WALES: The woman whose husband died after he spent 21 hours undiscovered in a hospital toilet after suffering a stroke has labelled NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner as a “waste of space”.
Her comments follow the latest hospital tragedy which left one newborn baby dead and another with severe disabilities.
As Mrs Skinner faces fresh calls to resign, an incensed Lexie Bugden told Sydney radio 2UE today the Health Minister had never contacted her, nor apologised for her husband’s death.
After hearing broadcasters speak to Mrs Skinner about her response to the death of a newborn baby after a gas mix-up at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital, Mrs Bugden phoned 2UE and let rip.
“She’s a waste of space. She really is,” Mrs Bugden said.
“I reckon that minister’s an absolute liar … they promised us it could never happen again.”
Read more:
A newborn has died and another has suspected brain damage after nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, was incorrectly administered instead of oxygen at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney’s south-west.
Read more:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-25/baby-dies-at-bankstown-lidcombe-hospital-after-oxygen-mix-up/7659552
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/how-governments-failed-to-stop-the-catastrophic-impact-of-tainted-blood-on-thousands-of-people-20160714-gq602j.html
JOANNE MCCARTHY
July 12, 2016, Tuesday, 6 p.m.
The Newcastle Herald
NEW SOUTH WALES: CHARLES MacKenzie has waited a long time for the Australian Government to say sorry.
He knows people who have died waiting.
In 1989, and aged 16, Mr MacKenzie was given a contaminated blood transfusion. The blood platelets that kept him alive as he battled life-threatening severe aplastic anaemia, also infected him with life-threatening hepatitis C.
Up to 20,000 other Australians – including babies, children, women after childbirth and haemophiliacs – are believed to have received “tainted blood” transfusions in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, in what has been described as a human health disaster and global scandal.
An unknown number developed, or could develop, serious liver disease, liver failure or liver cancer, at a rate “generally much higher” than people who contract the condition by other means, primarily illicit drug use, a Senate inquiry in 2004 was told.
It recommended the federal and state governments issue an apology to “tainted blood” hepatitis C victims, a financial fund for victims, and “case managed” support for people affected. The then health minister Tony Abbott said the governments would consider the recommendations.
It didn’t happen, said Mr MacKenzie, of Dora Creek, and Medical Error Action Group founder Lorraine Long.
In the past 18 months English Prime Minister David Cameron has formally apologised to English “tainted blood” victims, and the Scottish and Irish governments have approved pensions and substantial compensation to victims and their families.
Mr Cameron told the UK Parliament in March, 2015: “It is difficult to imagine the feelings of unfairness that people must feel at being infected by something like hepatitis C or HIV as a result of a totally unrelated treatment, and to each and every one of those people, I would like to say sorry on behalf of the government for something that should not have happened.”
In Scotland in March the government agreed to pay immediate compensation payments to victims, with lifetime pensions.
“In Australia there’s been silence,” said Mr MacKenzie.
After Mr Cameron’s apology Ms Long wrote to then Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, asking what had happened to the Australian response.
The letter was referred to Health Minister Sussan Ley.
In September 2015 Ms Ley wrote: “I wish to restate that I am deeply sorry to learn of the personal and physical suffering experienced by those who acquired hepatitis C from blood transfusions”, and the government acknowledged “the significant burden of this disease including the stigma”.
The response angered Mr MacKenzie and Ms Long, who called the failure to apologise and provide “case-managed” support for “tainted blood” victims a national disgrace.
“How can the UK apologise for a medical disaster, and Australia can’t, even after its own Senate recommended an apology?” Ms Long said.
An apology was vital for many reasons, including an acceptance of responsibility by federal and state governments, she said.
“People affected by one of Australia’s worst medical disasters can begin the important process of being able to show loved ones, employers and treating doctors that their infections were the outcome of an appalling tragedy and not the result of any illicit activity such as taking drugs.
“An apology will go some way to removing this ugly blood stain on Australia’s record.”
A 2004 Senate inquiry heard devastating evidence from victims who received hepatitis C in blood transfusions during childbirth and suffered debilitating symptoms, but did not discover the condition until years later. In at least one case a newborn baby was infected by hepatitis C because of a “tainted blood” transfusion.
“It’s the great unmentionable – how governments knew people would be infected with hepatitis C if they were given blood transfusions, but people weren’t told, and screening tests that could have been done, weren’t,” Mr MacKenzie said.
“Blood services were extremely aware there was a virus being transmitted to people, but they chose to do nothing about it. They just destroyed people’s lives.”
Read the full story:
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4023845/a-bloody-minded-silence/
