CORONAVIRUS — ELECTIVE SURGERY
14. Ms L. METTAM to the Minister for Health:
I have a supplementary question.
Given that this is not a cancellation of surgery, what assurances can the
minister provide to Michelle, who has now been waiting three years, that she
will not have to wait any longer?
Ms A.
SANDERSON replied:
I
am sorry for Michelle's circumstances; they are incredibly challenging.
I understand that the surgery she is seeking is preventive surgery as
opposed to surgery for life-threatening circumstances.
Ms L. Mettam: She has a lump.
She is having a biopsy.
Ms A. SANDERSON: I am not
understating the stressfulness of that situation at all; they are very, very
difficult personal circumstances to be in. I am not her clinician and I cannot
make any guarantees or decisions about surgery because I am not a doctor or a clinician.
Those decisions are made between the patient and the doctor, as is
appropriately so, but I can guarantee that all urgent surgeries will still go
ahead in our hospitals whether we have a surge of COVID or not.