Shannon Fentiman unveils five-point plan for health

Shannon Fentiman has unveiled a five-point plan to fix the state’s scandal-plagued health system – and revealed that her first act in the portfolio will take her 500km away from her Brisbane office.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman has unveiled her five-point plan as she defiantly declared she’s “not daunted” by the enormity of repairing the state’s scandal-plagued portfolio.

Tackling ambulance ramping, reducing wait times for both emergency care, for surgery, boosting women’s health and mental health care were revealed as the top priorities for the newly minted Minister in an exclusive interview with The Courier-Mail.

Less than 24-hours after being sworn in, Ms Fentiman will on Friday morning travel to Gladstone to speak directly with midwives and mothers about the region’s notorious maternity service bypass.

Shannon Fentiman speaks at a press conference after she was sworn-in as the Queensland Health Minister at Government House. Picture: Dan Peled / NCA NewsWire

Later in the day, she will travel further north to announce a $250 million expansion of the Mackay Base Hospital.

The upgrade comes after a disturbing review into the facility’s obstetrics and gynaecology department that revealed inadequate care was a factor in the death of babies.

“I’m heading straight there to Gladstone — it’s not good enough that hospital has been on bypass for so long,” Ms Fentiman said.

“I’ll be meeting with the staff and with women to see what more we can do to get that hospital back online for maternity services.”

Faith in the government’s ability to manage the key portfolio has collapsed, according to a recent YouGov poll, after the number of Queenslanders waiting in ambulances at hospitals for urgent care soared more than 25 per cent under the Palaszczuk government.

Meanwhile, alarming figures in February revealed nearly 60,000 patients were waiting for surgery.

“Performance data is there to get a measure of where the biggest pressures are in the system,” Ms Fentiman told The Courier-Mail.

“I will be asking some pretty tough questions of the department about what they’re doing to drive better performances around those areas of the system that are under pressure.

“Queenslanders expect us to do better, particularly around ambulance responses and wait times, and I will be focused on that.”

The health portfolio is widely renowned as the poisoned chalice in politics, with this particular task made more difficult by the piles of scandals waiting for the new Minister to negotiate, including with ambulance ramping, the DNA bungle, and spinal unit neglect at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.

Widespread ambulance ramping has been a persistent issue in Queensland. Picture: Liam Kidston

But Ms Fentiman declared she’s undeterred by the enormity of the challenge.

“I’m not daunted,” she said defiantly. “I will admit, it’s a huge challenge. But I’m up for it.

“I will be working hard every day to deliver better outcomes for Queenslanders to support our amazing hardworking frontline workers — Queenslanders deserve a first class health system and that’s what I’ll be working on each and every day.”

When announcing the new ministers on Thursday, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk urged departments to be more collaborative with the government and warned directors general there’ll be “no more working in silos”.

Ms Fentiman said she won’t shy away from uncomfortable discussions with leaders at Queenslander Health amid a need to push back against bureaucracy.

“It’s the Minister’s job to ask the tough questions,” she said.

“I’ll be getting briefings over the coming days and weeks and it’s really my job to drill down and make sure that the department is working with all of our HHS (hospital and health services) to really drive better performances.”

Ms Fentiman was also sworn in as Mental Health Minister amid the reshuffle, which she said would be focused on providing better access to acute care.

Inadequate mental health treatment has been scrutinised in recent weeks following a string of disturbing failures, with a coronial investigation launched following the death of a Townsville woman hours after being discharged from a mental health unit.

The Minister said she planned to channel funds collected from the mental health levy into tackling the scourge in the community.

“We have this levy in place, we have record investments in mental health — we need to make sure that people experiencing mental health challenges know where to go and know where to get help,” Ms Fentiman said.