While patients wait longer for surgery and staff are stretched to breaking point, the Minns Labor Government has once again chosen spin over substance.
Instead of owning up to its failures, Labor\u2019s latest press release rewrites history and takes patients for fools, by distorting the truth to distract from a health system under strain.
The facts speak for themselves:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This morning\u2019s so-called announcement isn\u2019t about patients. It\u2019s about politics.
Chris Minns and Ryan Park are hiding from scrutiny. Labor refuses to commit to an inquiry into the Western Sydney Local Health District, despite mounting evidence of dysfunction, overworked staff, and unsafe conditions for patients.
In Ryan Park, Paul Scully and Anna Watson\u2019s own region, the Illawarra, the results speak for themselves:
Only 17.9% of emergency department patients at Wollongong Hospital and 38.2% at Shellharbour Hospital were admitted or transferred within six hours, compared with the target of at least 80%.
Fewer than half of patients at Wollongong Hospital were discharged within four hours.
At Shellharbour, only 71.6% left within four hours.
In Wollongong\u2019s Emergency Short Stay Unit, only 48.7% were treated and admitted within four hours, when the target is at least 60%.
Leader of the Opposition Mark Speakman said this morning\u2019s media stunt was a classic Labor distraction.
\u201cThis is a desperate attempt by Labor to shift blame for their own failures. They\u2019ve had three budgets and two and a half years and still can\u2019t get their act together,\u201d Mr Speakman said.
Shadow Minister for Health Kellie Sloane said our hospitals are under pressure, and our nurses, doctors, and paramedics are doing everything they can.
\u201cThey\u2019re the heroes holding a broken system together while Labor spins. Patients are waiting in pain while Chris Minns and Ryan Park play politics,\u201d Ms Sloane said.
Shadow Minister for Regional Health Gurmesh Singh said Ryan Park can\u2019t even fix hospitals in his own backyard, so it\u2019s no surprise he\u2019s ignoring the rest of NSW.
\u201cOur hospitals in the regions are running on fumes while Wollongong-based ministers issue press releases. People out here aren\u2019t asking for luxury wards; they just want a doctor who isn\u2019t three towns away and an ambulance that shows up before it\u2019s too late. Labor\u2019s turned its back on regional NSW,\u201d Mr Singh said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While patients wait longer for surgery and staff are stretched to breaking point, the Minns Labor Government has once again chosen spin over substance. Instead of owning up to its failures, Labor\u2019s latest press release rewrites history and takes patients for fools, by distorting the truth to distract from a health system under strain. The facts speak … Continue reading “Minns labor government spins as the NSW health system falls apart”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35304,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35303\/revisions\/35304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}