Waiting game

CASEY Council has had, and I am sure will face more, significant challenges in providing its maternal and child health service.
Four thousand babies are born in Casey a year and that soon will be 5000. The next highest birth rate for a municipality is half that.
My View (Gazette, 31 January) mentioned the extraordinary attack on Casey MCH service by Narre Warren North MP Luke Donnellan and Casey deputy mayor Kevin Bradford. Why this attack? Why not call for urgent discussions on ways and means of overcoming the problem?
Reports show that the MCH service has been in trouble because it was unable through normal process to acquire enough nurses to cope with the sudden birth increase.
A costly recruitment program for nurses was instituted and appears to have been successful, at least in the short term.
Cr Bradford repeatedly said that councillors were not advised of acute nurse shortages. And Mr Donnellan said councillors were not updated on the situation for more than a year. I recall the last report just over a year ago and like the councillors I let it pass, but we did know there was a shortage of nurses.
My concern is that Cr Bradford was advised about the situation two weeks before his employer made a public attack on the MCH administration.
His main concern was that the council had introduced a questionnaire for parents in order to compile data about toddler progress. This is used during later consultation with nurses based on a waiting list. Illness and serious problems would be referred to a doctor.
Nothing has changed in the service to mums with babies less than one year old because the nursing team, albeit understaffed, maintained this part of the service.
Cr Bradford said the questionnaire did not comply with the service guidelines. Nevertheless, it appears the questionnaire has been successful and the State Government may use it.
My concern is what is behind Cr Bradford’s, and to a lesser extent Mr Donnellan’s, attack on staff when their role is to support and, perhaps, counsel. In a series of questions to community services director Jennie Lee, Cr Bradford demanded to know why councillors were not advised of the crisis. He also claimed in a letter to the editor, 7 February 2007, that: “One question for Mr Mynard to answer, if he can, is that as a councillor, would I have been notified of the situation of MCH services had it not been reported in the press? I think not.”
Well, I can answer.
Two weeks before Mr Donnellan’s public attack on the council, the acting director of community services Sophia Petrov, briefed Cr Bradford on the situation (see page 9).
Cr Bradford works in Mr Donnellan’s office and if he didn’t instigate the press release he must have known it was coming. Ms Lee did not use Ms Petrov’s report in her defence during Cr Bradford’s questioning probably because she wasn’t aware it existed because she had been on leave.
This debate highlights the fact that Casey MCH nurses are making an enormous contribution because they have maintained a wonderful service for nearly 4000 infants a year.
Officers introduced a questionnaire system for older children to help cope with an extreme nurse shortage and it appears to have worked, except for some who complained to Cr Bradford and perhaps Mr Donnellan.
The Casey MCH has 40,000 families on its books and 4000 babies a year who must be seen immediately. No one could convince me that with any amount of staff there would not be some complaints about the service, justified or not, yet Cr Bradford launched his attack based on two complaints because mothers of toddlers were placed on a waiting list.