Editorial: Satellite hospital name game a shameless political stunt

We would normally back the state government’s health clinics, but there’s a good reason we can’t, writes the editor.

If they were not such a shameless political stunt then we would back the state government’s so-called satellite hospital health clinics. Sadly, they are. And so we can’t.

In a world of rising healthcare costs and fewer GPs bulk-billing, it makes perfect sense to reduce the pressure on overwhelmed public hospital emergency departments by creating publicly funded primary care clinics, particularly in areas not well served by those hospitals.

But from the day these satellite hospitals were dreamt up – we assume by the state’s Department of Political Spin – the good people of Queensland have been treated as fools, and ironically with very little care about the possibility of them having adverse health outcomes.

It was first with the name itself. These are not hospitals. Calling them such is confusing. They are not set up to provide the type of care that hospitals are able to. But by naming them satellite hospitals, the politicians can promise these clinics instead of a real hospital – a political win, but a loss for the locals.

This is not only misleading. It is dangerous. As we revealed earlier this month, more and more people who are in need of lifesaving care are mistakenly showing up to their local “satellite hospital” thinking it can help. In the three months to June this year, a total of 1578 people with ailments later judged – by staff at a real hospital – to be imminently life-threatening turned up at one of these clinics designed to treat minor injuries and illnesses instead of an emergency department. That is the equivalent of 17 a day – and so one every one every hour and half or so.

There have been repeated calls from doctors via the Australian Medical Association for the clinics to be renamed to better reflect what they actually are.

AMAQ president Dr Nick Yim summed it up when he said recently: “Having seriously ill people present at a healthcare setting that is not equipped to handle a life-threatening emergency is dangerous for patients and distressing for staff.”

In 2022, leaked audio revealed a senior Queensland Health director telling staff she had unsuccessfully lobbied the government to not call the sites hospitals – predicting the type of confusion that has indeed happened. The government cannot say they were not warned.

But they don’t care. And we know why – the politicians are prioritising over healthcare the politics of Labor Party MPs being able to announce a satellite hospital is being built in the local area. It is a disgrace.

Of the seven clinics already built, all but one are in Labor-held seats – and the one that isn’t is in the most marginal LNP-held electorate of Currumbin on the Gold Coast.

Of the eight more expected to be announced in the lead-up to the October 26 election, all are tipped to be in seats held by Labor. And so by polling day, we anticipate there will have been a total of 15 satellite hospitals announced – and 14 will be in electorates held by Labor.

No matter how much Premier Steven Miles tries to laugh off claims of pork-barrelling, that really is the only honest way to describe what is happening here.

Premier Miles lauds the clinics as being a great way to take pressure of larger hospitals, as they provide free treatment for things such as fevers or earaches, cuts or broken bones.

But if you live in a town or suburb represented by an MP who is not in the Labor Party, you don’t get that. You’re at the back of the queue.

This is a health policy designed for politics, not to deliver on need – the opposite of good government.

TIME FOR CFMEU WORKERS TO WORK

On many measures, the CFMEU has done a sterling job of looking after its members in recent years – consistently negotiating the most generous of all union-demanded salaries and conditions in Australia.

But how the union has achieved that is the problem – with its tactics of deliberately scary masculine insurrection, disturbing personal threats, and of downing tools on a whim straying from legitimate industrial action into lawlessness.

Protected industrial action has its role in our society. Pre-arranged stop-work meetings and strikes can be a good way to clear deadlocks between workers and management.

But the CFMEU is a union that had grown out of control, which is why the federal Labor government – supported by the states – has done the right thing in putting it into administration, and sacking the leaders who led it in the wrong way.

Today, however, it is expected CFMEU members will walk off the job again to lay siege to our nation’s cities in what they are threatening will be the start of a “long war”.

These protests go beyond the pale – and come at a huge cost to the community, whose support they no longer have; if they ever did.

Thanks to industrial agreements that will survive the government actions of the past week, those workers planning to join today’s action are among the best paid of any Australian employees.

They should get back to what they are remunerated well to do, rather than to continue to carry on like a low-rent mob.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here

Originally published as Editorial: Satellite hospital name game a shameless political stunt