Transforming Health boss Vickie Kaminski ready for intense political scrutiny of change agenda
The overseas recruit now in change of implementing major changes to South Australia's public health system says the medical arena cannot avoid intense political scrutiny.
Vickie Kaminski quit her last job in Canada because the Alberta health system was unable to achieve planned changes due to the politics involved, but now she has taken on the role as chief transformation manager for SA Health.
Ms Kaminski told 891 ABC Adelaide her more than three decades of healthcare and management experience would help South Australia achieve the changes outlined in the State Labor Government policy known as Transforming Health.
"I don't think we'll ever find a place where healthcare doesn't have high politics and high scrutiny because we are often 40 per cent of the budget, so politicians are going to want to know what's going on," she said.
"I think our job is to help them know what's going on and do the right things and then show them the right way to do them."
The new health boss promised to listen to clinicians and others who used the public health system, but said there was no plan to change the implementation timetable, as people such as federal Labor MP Mark Butler had urged.
Ms Kaminski said the public system would have fewer hospital beds under Transforming Health's changes, but she spoke of improved home care and other services in the community.
She said she was confident of being able to improve health outcomes and save money for South Australians.
"We know that we can improve the quality of the results that people get," she said.
"Saving money is an aspect of it, for sure — people think that there is some ulterior motive and that this is just cost-cutting [but] if anything we do is unsafe then I wouldn't be doing it.
"My passion is making sure that we have safe, reliable public healthcare and that we can show the results to the people we're serving."