Page 1063 - Week 04 - Thursday, 29 March 1990
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I know it has been said that the ACT is, in some respects, overallocated for nursing home places and we have already got our full entitlement. That may well be true, but it either means that factors need to be reconsidered to take more account of local needs or that the whole Commonwealth formula needs to be reassessed. Whatever it is, we have to face up to that fairly quickly.
The committee also recommended in the course of its report that the Jindalee Nursing Home be relocated and that the construction of a new facility be funded, at least in part, through the proceeds of the sale of the current site at Narrabundah. I would appreciate getting - and perhaps Mr Berry will give this when he speaks later on in this debate - a clear idea of the ALP's position on this particular proposal. I may be mistaken, but I have sensed a certain reticence on the part of the ALP in the past to the idea of selling the Jindalee Nursing Home. That may have changed as a result of this report; I am not sure. Certainly Mr Berry is on the record as having said that.
I imagine Mr Berry would have visited the home in the course of his tenure as Minister for Health and he would have seen the very obvious inadequacies of that site. It is not a particularly suitable location for aged care. (Extension of time granted) People who have visited the site will be aware that, apart from the rather steep ramps in some places, there is a very large space, a very long distance, between the upper and lower parts of the home. Apart from reducing or virtually eliminating the possibility of any people from one part of the home visiting the other part because they could not make it up the slope, or if they went down the slope they would not be able to make it back up the slope afterwards, it greatly increases the cost of running the site because they are so widely separated and require additional costs to make them run efficiently. For example, you cannot provide food services to both parts of the location.
I welcome the recommendation of the committee that the home be relocated and the sale price be spent towards providing new facilities elsewhere. As members are well aware, the Alliance Government has decided to relocate that nursing home to the Acton Peninsula as part of the overall hospitals redevelopment project. I think that is a very suitable idea not only because it removes the problems at Jindalee but also it provides an eminently beautiful alternative site. The Acton Peninsula is a site of enormous physical beauty and I think that the older people who would be the occupants of a nursing home there would very greatly appreciate the beauty that that site offers. So, as I have said, I would like to get some indication later in this debate from the opposite side of the chamber as to what the ALP's attitude is towards that relocation.
Continence services were also mentioned in the report. They are recognised by this Government to be an area of
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