While the Royal North Shore Hospital inquiry has successfully identified the major problems at the facility, Government members of the committee consistently voted down recommendations that would provide real solutions, Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner and Parliamentary Secretary for Rural Health Jenny Gardiner said today. 

"We have produced a dissenting report because Government members of the committee consistently voted down recommendations that would have given patients and health professionals some hope that this inquiry would actually improve conditions at Royal North Shore Hospital," Mrs Skinner said.

"The public have a right to know what the Iemma Government didn't want in the inquiry recommendations," she said.

The dissenting report recommends:

• Establishment of an independent oversight body to monitor and report on the implementation of recommendations in this report;

• The NSW Government make more hospital based training places available for specialist training;

• Involvement of emergency department (ED) doctors in establishing optimum levels for ED workforces recommended in the report (building on AMWAC guidelines);

• An extra 70 beds immediately opened at RNSH, with adequate resources to staff and operate them with further work to determine how many beds will be needed to ensure less than an 85% occupancy rate;

• The development of clinical service plans to determine the roles of each of the hospitals in the region;

• Establishment of a RNSH Board, and;

• Greater transparency and accountability in budgets, including trust funds.

"The report's recommendations will not inspire confidence in patients or health professionals, especially given that there will be no independent follow up review to determine if the Government will actually bother to implement them," Mrs Skinner said.

"Government members on this committee have let the public down, they've let patients down, they've let health professionals down and they've let themselves down.

"The recommendations are a watered-down version of what might have been, and many are nothing more than bureaucratic nonsense.

"We argued for an independent inquiry that was removed from the political process, these findings prove why that should have been the case."

Ms Gardiner said despite being presented with all the evidence, the inquiry had failed to make any real recommendations of substance.

"The committee heard the Iemma Labor Government needs to give Royal North Shore more beds, more nurses and that Morris Iemma and Reba Meagher need to start listening to frontline health professionals – this report might say that they should do that, but there’s nothing to ensure they do in the long term," Ms Gardiner said.

"This committee has failed to send the Iemma Government a clear message about improving conditions at Royal North Shore Hospital and the wider health system longer term, confirming this whole inquiry was primarily a political instrument. 

"The crises at Royal North Shore Hospital have implications for hospitals in country and coastal NSW.  RNSH provides state-wide services such as care for serious burns patients and those with serious spinal injuries as well as intensive neonatal care and reconstructive surgery.

 "The Area Health Service structure that Mr Iemma created when he was Minister for Health hasn't worked and I remain convinced it should be reviewed, not just the Area in which Royal North Shore Hospital is located, but right across the State.

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