Opinion: Health minister and department boss an uneasy pairing

Shaun Drummond’s resignation was on the cards the moment Shannon Fentiman took over from Yvette D’Ath as Health Minister, writes Stephanie Bennett.

Health director-general Shaun Drummond has resigned eight months into his tenure. . Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

It was a relationship that was never going to work: a numbers-focused, analytically-minded bureaucrat and a personable politician who wanted to reform a broken system.

While the way Queensland Health boss Shaun Drummond’s resignation was announced shocked even Health Minister Shannon Fentiman, what was less of a shock to insiders was that the two opposing personalities would not be able to work together long-term.

Those in the know say the resignation of Mr Drummond just six weeks after Ms Fentiman was parachuted in to fix the Palaszczuk’s Government’s biggest problem was on the cards the moment she was announced.

Even Mr Drummond, in his own statement to staff on Wednesday following the Premier announcing he would be gone in a month, said “this is a matter I have been considering the last few weeks”.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman asserted her support of Mr Drummond at a media conference on Wednesday morning. Picture: NCA NewsWire / John Gass

Ms Fentiman was regarded as the best pick in the Cabinet to lead the troubled portfolio, with her compassionate style seen as the best way forward – more effective for the government in managing media blow-ups, but in stark contrast to Mr Drummond’s unemotional approach.

Insiders say he was more aligned to former Minister Yvette D’Ath’s no-nonsense manner of dealing with a crisis, but a manner which left her labelled as unsympathetic, especially regarding matters such as the maternity crisis and issues with the PA spinal unit.

Ms D’Ath and Mr Drummond appeared together numerous times, with the former seeming to lean on her Director-General to cop flack over failures in the portfolio far more than other ministers.

It was a role he was happy to play – often showing up at press conferences with the Minister, and appearing on radio to defend the troubled Queensland Health.

Whether the new Minister failed to warm to Mr Drummond, or whether he knew Ms Fentiman would not allow him to run his own race, what is clear is that at least one of them decided this new dynamic would not work.

Perhaps most telling is that Mr Drummond made no mention of why he was departing the $500,000 per year job in his letter to staff – no family issues, no health issues, no time for a new challenge, no well-worn reason for moving on.

Instead, in his style, he listed data sets he was proud of – 2nd median wait times to be seen in emergency departments, 2nd on proportion of patients seen within clinically recommended time frames, 1st with lowest percentage proportion of outpatients over 365 days, and so on.

He also said he “successfully stewarded two financial years and kept Queensland Health in surplus”.