Page 2203 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 31 October 1989
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option provided for the retention of all existing public hospital sites, with Royal Canberra being developed as a community hospital of around 250 beds and Calvary Hospital being maintained with about 150 beds.
After receiving the steering committee report, the Government consulted widely with the community. Many issues and concerns were raised, and these were addressed by the Government before making its decision. The Government has decided that the redevelopment of the ACT public hospitals must focus on the creation of an integrated and comprehensive system. This system will retain the three existing public hospitals, although in a revised, more effective and efficient form.
The integrated hospital system which the Government will develop will provide the 1,000 public hospital beds estimated to be required in the year 2000. A major feature of this integrated approach will be the collocation of high-level services and technology at Woden Valley Hospital. Collocation of the major specialties will mean that all high-risk patients will be treated there. This means that high-level support services, which are both costly and difficult to staff, would be needed at only one site.
The advantage of collocating the high-level services include: reduced duplication of services with consequent savings in expenditure; improved cover by medical and surgical specialists who currently have to work across two or more sites; enough specialist medical, nursing and other professional staff in one place to provide good opportunities for education, training, research, peer review and quality assurance; greater professional job satisfaction and consequent improvements in recruitment of scarce specialist human resources; ability to attain more easily the proposed levels of complexity of services which will improve services available in the ACT; increased viability of high-level services because of the volume of specific cases being seen in one place and consequent improvements in clinical practice; an extensive range of basic, common services across all three hospitals; and, of course, reduced duplication of services.
In reaching its decision on the development of a new and revitalised hospital system, the Government has paid careful heed to a range of factors, including capital and recurrent operating costs and social justice considerations. The Government recognises that the existing three public hospitals system is an integral part of the ACT community and a feature that affects more residents in one way or another.
Retaining the three public hospitals, albeit in a more effective format, will maintain diversity of services and client choice offered by our hospital system. The provision of services at all three sites will allow the development of different philosophies of treatment and
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