EDUCATION BUNGLEDOM

Three current articles below:

Queensland: Teachers fear for their lives

Education authorities are under fire for providing dangerous and "deplorable" living conditions for teachers sent to work on Mabuiag Island in the Torres Strait. As the State Government continues to face fall-out from the rape of a nurse on the island, serious safety concerns have been raised about living quarters for teachers. The home retained for teachers has screen doors that won't lock, no airconditioning or washing machine and is generally run down, with broken vinyl flooring and peeling paint.

The father of a young teacher sent to the island from Brisbane this year was so frightened for her safety he wrote to his local MP pleading for an urgent security upgrade to the property. "I am appalled by this situation and believe this is a disgrace to have young female teachers working under these conditions, he wrote on February 26, before the rape was made public.

"There is no security for (his daughter) and the other resident of the premises and recently (a woman) was dragged from her residence and raped." He said his daughter, 24. now sleeps with a knife beside her bed", although it is understood the teacher later explained she had the knife in a cupboard.

The Bribie Island father, who did not want to be named, yesterday said his daughter had first approached her school principal about the state of the premises. "The principal had to get in contact with somebody to fix it up and was told there wasn't any money," he said.

A locksmith was sent to the property to fix security locks and screens at the premises within days of the letter being sent to Pumicestone's Labor MP Carryn Sullivan and then on to the North Queensland seat of Cook's Labor MP Jason O'Brien. Education Minister Rod Welford also personially responded to the case assuring the teacher and her father that the property would he fully repaired.

Opposition leader Lawrence Springborg said the case raised concerns about the standard of all remote housing for medical and teaching staff. "I raised in Parliament a motion which called for all the safety audits to be released for these type of remote communities around Queensland for the departments of health and education," he said. "The Government didn't release that information and voted down the motion. "If you've got one teacher's house that is like this, you've really got to ask how many others there are."

Education Queensland quick reaction to the teacher's father's letter is in stark contrast to Queensland Health's response to security concerns. The department failed to act on a safety report that warned remote area nurses were at "extreme" risk. 16 months before the nurse's rape in her island home on January 5. The nurse's quarters on Mabuiag Island were described in the report as one of the worst, with no locks, security system or working lights.

The article above by David Murray appeared in the the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on March 16, 2008

NSW: Teachers flee as attacks rise

EVERY school day a teacher is assaulted with punches, kicks, chairs and in several cases have had guns held to their heads. The Daily Telegraph can reveal the personal hell some teachers experienced in New South Wales public school classrooms last year - and why so many are giving up on the profession. Teachers filed 252 official reports of assault or serious threats to their safety, including 102 physical assaults, between September 2006 and August 2007.

Reports released by the Department of Education and Training under Freedom of Information laws show teacher safety fears make up almost one-third of reports of serious disruptions in schools. The incident reports show teachers are regularly threatened with firearms or other weapons - from broken bottles to knives - by students, parents or intruders.

A survey of new teachers by the Australian Education Union released this month found nearly half did not see themselves still teaching within 10 years, with "behaviour management" one of the top concerns. More than half said they had not received any professional training in behaviour management. The issue tops the list of teachers' concerns in secondary schools (more than 65 per cent) and is the second most important issue in NSW schools overall.

Among the reports, one of the most worrying cases reported by teachers, a male Year 7 student held a "silver automatic pistol" to a female teacher's head for one minute after he had been stopped from playing tackle football with friends. Police called to the western Sydney high school found the pistol was a "realistic" replica but the teacher did not know at the time. The student was arrested and charged with assault and use of a prohibited weapon. In other cases, a Year 12 girl in the Sutherland area of Sydney's south was suspended after driving a car at her principal, who was forced to leap to safety.

The reports show children as young as five are presenting with mental health problems, often forcing schools to call in a specialist "mental health team". At a primary school in the Lake Illawarra area, a kindergarten boy went berserk and tried to "trash" the classroom. "As the teacher went to shut the door, he was struck in the back of the head by a chair," the report reads. The teacher required physiotherapy after the attack.

Former NSW Central Coast teacher Richard Neville is one of many who has left the profession out of fear for their safety. He ended his 12-year career as a high school teacher after two students attacked him with scissors and a lump of wood. Now a fireman, Mr Neville said he found the job "safer than teaching". "The boy who came at me with the pair of scissors and the one who took the swing at me with a lump of wood were 13 year olds," Mr Neville said.

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Strike threat by Cairns State school parents

PARENTS will pull their children out a Cairns state school in a strike aimed at fixing "Third World conditions" there. Strike organiser Mark Cash yesterday said the State Government was failing Trinity Beach State School students and the community. "This school has none of the things other schools have," he said. "They just keep patching it up. There's no real change. "Something has to be done. I don't want to have to shift my kids to another school."

Parents and children yesterday gathered outside the school, ahead of the planned strike, to voice their concerns about its condition. "We need fair, decent facilities," father of two Neils Munksgard said. "We need somewhere where the kids can play when it's raining. The grounds are completely waterlogged." "The classrooms are very crowded . there are a lot of general maintenance issues."

Mr Munksgard said he believed if things were not fixed soon, more parents would take their children out of the school, which was established in 1970. "I put it down to inefficiency and bureaucratic neglect," he said.

Barron River MP Steve Wettenhall agreed the school needed urgent attention, but said a student strike was "ill-conceived". "I don't support the proposition that students attending the school be disrupted and embroiled in an issue that has nothing to do with them," Mr Wettenhall said. "This is not the way to go about achieving outcomes for the school." Mr Wettenhall said he hoped to fix rusty guttering and drain pipes, which were contributing to the school's drainage problem, with special funding.

A statement released by the Education Department yesterday said flooring containing asbestos was being managed in compliance with the Queensland Government's policy. "The school has also organised for maintenance staff to urgently address ongoing problems with the junior toilet block," the statement said. Both the Far North Queensland executive director of schools and the regional facilities manager met with the principal yesterday and inspected the school.

The strike is planned for between 9am and 10am on Wednesday, March 26. Mr Cash said he expected to see at least 300 parents and their children get involved. "Everyone we've spoken to has said they will be coming."

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HEALTH BUNGLEDOM

Three current articles below:

Torres Island sex danger ignored by State Health

QUEENSLAND Health faced more damaging allegations last night after it was revealed it ignored repeated warnings that a man who allegedly raped a nurse on Mabuiag Island was mentally unstable. The revelations came as The Courier-Mail conducted an inspection of health centres on the remote Torres Strait islands where there was evidence the department had made superficial upgrades in a desperate bid to avert a threatened nurses strike from March 28. It also emerged that the nurse who was allegedly raped, has indicated she wants to return to the island. A 22-year-old Mabuiag Island man has been charged with rape and burglary over the February 5 incident.

Doctors also have called on the Queensland Government to improve safety for health workers amid revelations authorities failed to act on and allegedly doctored a November 2006 report outlining security risks at Torres Strait health centres.

The Courier-Mail toured the island's facilities yesterday and found many of the buildings, especially the newer ones, did not display significant degradation. However, frustrated health workers highlighted serious design and maintenance issues. They accused health bureaucrats of repeatedly lying to them, ignoring a decade of complaints and abandoning them. "I just think it's disgusting that it took the rape of a very lovely person to get some movement and for them to take action," a health worker said yesterday.

Workers were wary of speaking to The Courier-Mail because they said they were under a gag order from Queensland Health not to speak to the media. Teachers on the island also have been banned from talking about their working conditions and safety concerns.

All facilities inspected yesterday had been fitted with new security locks. But workers said the improvements fell short. "Somehow the keys find their way into the community," one said. Badu Island handyman Bob Brown said he recently fitted new doors to the island's health centre.

Other islands reported an influx of visitors, including top Health Department bureaucrats and nurse's union representatives, all promising to fix problems. But the island health workers said they had heard it all before and were committed to walking off the job this month unless "real and lasting" improvements were made.

On Mabuiag Island, former council chairwoman Louisa Guise, who is awaiting results of Saturday's election elections, said the island and health centre had been unfairly represented in the media. "With the news everything comes out like it was an old building but that was opened in 2004 and cost $3.5 million," she said. "In the papers it seemed like the community didn't care and everything came back to the community but it was only one person."



Ms Guise said islanders had warned Queensland Health for the past seven years that the alleged rapist had mental health problems and had asked for him to be removed from the island. Mental health workers came to Mabuiag and assessed the man but left him there, she said. Ms Guise said the nurse had loved working on the island and wanted to return. "She wants to come back," she said.

Queensland Health Minister Stephen Robertson has referred the case to the Crime and Misconduct Commission. The Australian Medical Association Queensland president Ross Cartmill has called for more safety for medical professionals in remote areas.

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How parliament works

With particular reference to the latest Queensland Health Dept. botch job

Dress a man in a pinstripe suit, put a sheaf of papers in his hand, give him some basic acting lessons and you have a template for a Queensland government Cabinet minister. The papers are useful props in the theatre of parliament and can be brandished aloft to add credibility to some of the larger lies being uttered, while the acting lessons are helpful in pretending anger and dismay when the latest evidence of ministerial incompetence explodes on the front page of this newspaper.

The pinstripe suit? There is a misplaced belief that this adds a vestige of authority to the wearer. If worn with a shirt and tie that are even remotely compatible, this might even work. Sadly, as ministers to a man appear to get dressed in the dark or while blindfolded, this rarely happens in the Queensland Parliament.



It is the expression, however, that look of indignant rage, that is most important, for it is with this that you seek to deflect blame for your sins of omission and commission. We were treated to a vintage performance of IR - indignant rage - last week by Health Minister Stephen Robertson as he thrashed around on the floor of Parliament looking for someone to blame for Queensland Health's latest crisis. As reported, Robertson discovered in the wake of the alleged rape of a nurse on a remote Aboriginal community that a Queensland Health report highly critical of security for government staff, including health workers, had been ignored.

Shock! Horror! Outrage! The minister was furious. Why hadn't he been told? Someone had to be blamed and it certainly wasn't going to be the pinstriped, paper-waving, duly sworn in Minister of the Crown responsible for Queensland Health.

This is the same minister, as it happens, who checked into a private hospital when he required heart surgery rather than place himself in the caring hands of his own department's public hospital system.

A public service scapegoat was quickly unearthed. Given a target, the minister delivered another convincing display of IR, damning the man as disgraceful and incompetent for not having acted on the report. Premier Anna Bligh who learnt from that master of deception, Peter Beattie, never to accept responsibility for your actions, joined the attack, sinking a high-heeled shoe into the hapless public servant.

Robertson was still indignant when the public servant in question, whom no one in the Government had bothered to contact, pointed out that he had been transferred before the report had been completed and had never seen it.

Oops! It will come as no surprise to hear that when told of this, Robertson was shocked and horrified to the point of indignant rage, his IR directed, it could safely be presumed, at whoever had supplied him with a scapegoat who had a watertight alibi. Couldn't he trust anyone to do anything? Did he have to go out and find his own scapegoats? He didn't have time for that. He was too busy being outraged.

Then there was the matter of the report itself. The public, you'd think, had a right to know what it contained but Robertson seemed to think that he might need to get legal advice on the matter, and no free pinstriped suits with ill-matching ties for guessing what that advice was going to be. Having been sat on in north Queensland, the report was to be sat on in George Street. By the time all concerned had taken turns in sitting on it, it would be tissue thin. As he was about to slide the report beneath the seat of his pinstriped trousers, it became obvious that not even the gullible members of the Queensland public were going to allow the minister to hide behind some highly suspect legal advice. They may have fallen for some whoppers in the past but this was going to be a stretch, so it would have to be released.

Then a funny thing happened between the report being removed from under the ministerial posterior and it appearing in Parliament. Some rotten bugger tidied it up, changing a few key words in an apparent attempt to lessen its impact on what was left of the Government's credibility. When the minister's attention was drawn to this, he was shocked and horrified, saying he had no idea who had altered the report. In any case, the mysterious disappearance of words like "immediately" and "extreme" was neither here nor there, he said.

Not that he wasn't treating the matter seriously - and to prove it, he said: "I treat this matter very seriously." So there. Furthermore, as well as being outraged and indignant, he was angry. "I don't mind if people think I look angry because that's what I am," he said.

We're all angry, Mr Minister. Angry that someone who has lost control of his department doesn't do the honourable thing, hand in his taxpayer funded pinstriped suit and resign.

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VIC: Surgeons walk out of public system

SURGEONS are quitting Victoria's public health system in alarming numbers, dismayed at their working conditions and pay, a ministerial review says. Morale is low, frustration is rising and senior and junior surgeons are joining the exodus, the independent review says. The Australian Medical Association says this is evidence that Victoria is on the precipice of a crisis in public health. "Public hospitals are at a crossroads: what happens now will determine whether we plunge into crisis or not," AMA Victoria president Doug Travis said. "Fewer surgeons will mean fewer operations. It's that simple."

From 2000 to 2006, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) surgeons operating only in the public sector dropped by almost 40%, from 139 to 84. At the same time, the number of FTE surgeons operating publicly and privately fell by almost 10%, from 914 to 826. FTE numbers in the private sector stayed steady. FTEs do not directly correspond to surgeon numbers, but show that surgeons are doing less work in public hospitals. Tim Woodruff, of the Doctors Reform Society of Australia, said this was a worrying trend that would hurt those with serious, complicated illnesses who could not afford private health cover.

The Ministerial Review of Victorian Public Health Medical Staff was completed in November but has not been released by the Government. The Age has seen the part of the review that looks at problems with retaining senior staff in the public system. It says the problem is not confined to surgeons. "Both general working conditions and remuneration are driving Victorian doctors from the public sector both into the private sector and interstate," the review says. "Reasons that attracted clinicians to public hospitals in the past are rapidly disappearing." Procedural specialists are a particularly endangered species, the review was told. "There is considerable disquiet particularly amongst orthopedic surgeons within the public health sector, with many surgeons having resigned their public appointments within the past 12 months," the review panel heard. "These resignations not only include many senior surgeons but also a number of junior surgeons."

Low pay in the public sector is a key determinant in the problem, the review says. But surgeons in the public systems are also affected by a loss of goodwill and job satisfaction. "There were many reports of poor morale, a feeling that medical practitioners were devalued by the system and by management," the review says.

Medical practitioners told the review panel there was a proliferation of hospital bureaucracy, setting key performance indicators that did not relate to quality of care but increasingly emphasised patient throughput.

One submission says staff morale at Victorian hospitals is at an all-time low. "Attendance at medical staff meetings, once dynamic, frequently fails to make a quorum," it says.

Another complained about the increasing separation of hospital management from medical, nursing and paramedical staff. "This . has led to such a high degree of frustration that many who were previously committed to the public hospital system have often decided to spend the minimum time possible (if any) in the public health system."

Dr Travis said the report's findings matched his own observations. Younger surgeons were more likely to go interstate, where they could earn up to $100,000 more a year, he said. Older surgeons were more likely to cut the amount of work in public hospitals. "We are on the precipice," he said. He called for the immediate release of the report so work could start on addressing its recommendations.

Last week Nationals leader Peter Ryan quoted in Parliament a leaked section of the report's findings that said reduction in bed numbers and high occupancy rates were causing stress in the health system. "It puts the lie to the position the Government consistently portrays: that the system is running well," he said.

Health Minister Daniel Andrews told Parliament the review was entering its final stages. "There will be a Government response," he said. Yesterday a spokeswoman for Mr Andrews said the report would be released shortly. "The Brumby Government has recruited an additional 1800 doctors to the system since coming to government," she said. "We currently invest around $40 million each year to recruit and retain our health workforce. "We are working with the Rudd Government to address this issue."

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