Opinion: One does not simply suspend 4k staff and carry on normally

We’re told to trust Queensland Health to “manage” the staff shortfall in our struggling hospitals after the suspension of thousands of unvaxxed workers. Yeah, right, says Kylie Lang.

The idiocy continues at Queensland Health as Minister Yvette D’Ath says she is not worried about the impact of suspending 4000 unvaccinated workers from hospitals.

She should be, with their absence certain to plunge the state’s overburdened hospital system deeper into crisis.

How could it not?

Frontline workers are at breaking point, if they haven’t already snapped and taken extended leave or quit, as pandemic pressures bite.

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Let’s face it, our hospitals weren’t coping before Covid-19, with an ambulance “ramping” crisis due to a shortage of beds and staff among the indictments.

And as bungles are revealed with increasing frequency – Caboolture Hospital the latest in the firing line – any fool can see these taxpayer-funded institutions are under-resourced and underperforming.

Health Minister Yvette D'Ath yesterday. Picture: Jono Searle/NCA NewsWire

Ms D’Ath – a week shy of her first year as Minister for Health and Ambulance Services after replacing bumbling hothead Steven Miles – admitted the suspension “with full pay” of 4000 staff would result in “some disruptions”.

“But we are managing those disruptions … we have been planning for this,” she said on Monday.

How exactly? Would that planning be akin to the excellent forethought evident in the operations of Queensland Health’s exemption unit?

Where common sense and compassion prevail only after people take their story to the media.

Where for some it’s too late, like Brendan Luxton, who suicided upon his release from hotel quarantine as his family’s pleas to Queensland Health about his declining mental state went spectacularly unanswered.

Where just this week we learnt that the fraught unit, which Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk scolded in September as needing to “do better”, is now battling on with fewer workers instead of the staff increase the Premier promised.

Would the planning Minister D’Ath is relying on after suspending thousands of workers be of the calibre shown in community immunisation hubs, which run out of vaccines or administer overly diluted doses?

Horrific bungles at Caboolture Hospital have shone a bigger spotlight on the health system.

Or the kind that sees Queensland a national embarrassment for its low vaccination rates that no last-ditch incentives – including $10 meal vouchers – will fix after then chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young scared people about AstraZeneca and this Labor Government wasted time trying to blame the Federal Government for everything?

Yet we’re told by Ms D’Ath not to panic, that her mob has contingencies to “manage workforce shortages” in hospitals.

Sorry if we don’t take your word for it, Minister.

I personally think it’s a disgrace that 7000 Queensland Health staff are yet to confirm their vaccination status, including 3000 of whom are on long service or maternity leave which presumably means they’re uncontactable or unaccountable.

These people, excluding those rendered ineligible for the jab on medical grounds, have had months to do the right thing.

In my opinion, it is professionally improper and socially irresponsible for health workers to refuse to roll up their sleeves.

Look at what happened in March this year when an unvaxxed doctor and nurse caught the virus while treating patients who’d tested positive.

The Princess Alexandra Hospital cluster sent Greater Brisbane into lockdown and sparked further economic heartbreak for businesses and social isolation for the vulnerable.

Then chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young spooked Queenslanders over AstraZeneca.

Australian Medical Association Queensland president Chris Perry said at the time Queensland Health should “at the bare minimum” ensure frontline healthcare workers have had a vaccine.

Fast forward to November and compliance still isn’t what it should be.

Instead of suspending recalcitrant staff on full pay, don’t pay them at all.

The bottom line is that if this government had been doing its job before the pandemic, we wouldn’t be in this mess where the loss of 10 per cent of the health workforce will compound chaos.

We would have had enough people on the ground to cover any shortfall instead of further burdening the too few left holding the fort.

My 21-year-old son took a trip to the ER ward of the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital last Saturday after a cycling accident.

It was his first such visit and he said he was “in awe” of the kindness he was shown but it was clear that doctors, nurses and receptionists were exhausted.

The ER was overwhelmed – a reflection of any Queensland hospital on any given day.

Trusting Queensland Health to manage this latest impending crisis is as foolish as expecting the state’s vaccination rate to magically hit 90 per cent so we are allowed to get on with our lives.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail

LOVE

* Hugh Jackman on late TV legend Bert Newton: “Just by watching him, I learned how to handle the spotlight with grace, dignity, humour and class.”

* The grace period being over for motorists caught on camera using their phone when driving and failing to wear seatbelts. Forget warning notices. Bring on fines. Queensland’s roads are dangerous enough.

LOATHE

* Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull forgetting his place – which is out of government – and calling Scott Morrison a liar over the handling of the $90 billion submarine deal with France, which Turnbull approved when he was in the top job. Disgraceful.

* Education Queensland’s limp response to videos online of violent fights in Toowoomba school yards: “Violence and anti-social behaviours are not tolerated in Queensland state schools.” The videos, since removed, would suggest otherwise.