‘Chaos’ for health providers taken by surprise over public holiday
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Questions have been raised about how the public holiday to mark the passing of Queen Elizabeth II will impact the state’s stretched health service.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a one-off national public holiday on Thursday 22 September 22 to commemorate the Queen.
President of the Australian Medical Association in Queensland, Dr Maria Boulton, said they were seeking clarification about what surgeries and appointments would be impacted and postponed.
“We actually did reach out to Queensland Health this morning to find out what’s going to happen, with those elective surgeries, specialist outpatient appointments and those investigative appointments that people are booked to have next Thursday,” she told Neil Breen.
She said some GPs had dozens of patients booked in already.
“It’s thrown us into a little bit of chaos.”
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