Hansard - Parliament

42
2012.05.08
Mr. President, I have in my hand, having visited Victoria, Australia
recently on a course that had to do with accounting to the taxpayer in my
capacity as chairman of the Public Accounts (Enterprises) Committee—and
one of the documents that I obtained there was a complete and total report
entitled: “Acute Health Services Under Case Mix; a Case of Mixed
Priorities, Auditing in the Public Interest.”
This is a complete and total analysis of some of the problems based on
a study that was done on the health system in that part of the world, and it is
amazing the kinds of detail that they went into, and published this document
for the benefit of all stakeholders and, no doubt, the public of Australia in
general and Victoria, in particular.
They surveyed the entire workforce there and they came up with a
number of interesting findings, and I would not—they looked at work
demands on nurses; work demands on doctors; cleanliness of hospital
facilities and the number of cleaning staff; the administrative workload;
maintenance of equipment; maintenance of hospital buildings; patient access
to allied health services; counselling services for patients; hospital
cleanliness; interpreter services; physical environment; privacy of patient;
standard of equipment; a complete and total audit of the way things are
done.
I look forward to the day when we could get to this kind of level of
analysis about any sector, not the least the health sector in Trinidad and
Tobago. And I am prepared to make this document available to the Minister
of Health so that he could see, as I did, and be impressed as I was, with the
kind of minute and the kind of details that they looked at, surveying all the
stakeholders, and they have come up with a complete understanding.