Page 980 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 1990
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in the ACT each year? The fact is that the number of births in the ACT stands at a figure of only 4,700. With population growth we could expect this to rise to somewhere around 5,000 births per year over the next decade.
Mr Moore: Five thousand children.
MR HUMPHRIES: Not necessarily 5,000 children, but 5,000 births per year over the next decade. What that means is that there is considerable slack in the obstetric services available in the ACT at the present time. There are considerably more obstetric beds than there are births. What that ought to mean to anybody with a modicum of commonsense is that there is no need to increase the total number of obstetric beds available in the ACT, but there is a need, as I pointed out before, to expand the range of options and permit some women to have birth in private hospitals because none of those beds are available in private hospitals.
Let us face facts. I know that some of the women who sit here in this chamber have had babies. They would know, and their peers would certainly know, that when women make a number of choices about health care in their lives, one thing that women most often take out private health insurance for is to be able to have their babies in top quality facilities, and for some women that means in private facilities. Many women make that choice but in the ACT at the present time - - -
Mr Moore: Some cannot afford to make that choice.
MR HUMPHRIES: No, Mr Moore, there is no question of not having a choice. At the moment the choice is denied in respect of women who want private birth. That is where there is no choice. Women who want public births have absolutely no problem. There are heaps of beds for those women, no shortage whatsoever. The fact is, Mr Deputy Speaker, that a realistic government - and ours is a realistic Government - has no choice but to provide for the desires and the needs of all women in the ACT. That is precisely what this Government will do. We will approve a small number - - -
Mr Moore: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker; I just draw your attention to the lack of a quorum. More than half the Government is not here and we do not have a quorum.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Moore. (Quorum formed)
MR HUMPHRIES: It says something about the desire not to hear me on this debate that a point of order was made.
Mr Moore: No, I am very interested.
MR HUMPHRIES: You would not have called a point of order and cut my time back, Mr Moore.
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