Page 1621 - Week 06 - Thursday, 3 May 1990
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That the Assembly takes note of the following paper:
Redevelopment of the public hospital system and corporatisation of hospital services supply centre - Ministerial statement, 27 March 1990.
DR KINLOCH (3.42): I appreciate the opportunity to speak now because I am due at the doctor's at 4.15, so it is very appropriate to be speaking on health at the moment. I began some discussions the other day on the budget matter, our open government and our budget planning, by talking about druthers and what one would like and what one can have - what one can have under the conditions left to us by the Commonwealth Government and what we can go ahead with under present economic conditions. I am in no doubt that what has been concluded and what Mr Humphries has led us to is an excellent scheme.
I want to begin by talking about the need for redevelopment of the principal hospital. The Government is committed to developing a high-quality public hospital system at a cost the community can afford. At the moment there are currently three main public hospitals in the ACT, all providing high-standard services, and even the Royal Canberra Hospital will remain open for the remainder of this year.
Ever since Calvary Public Hospital opened in 1979 there has been hospital bed capacity largely unused, and expensive facilities have been lying idle. I have had the experience in recent months of seeing a great deal of Calvary Hospital. It is a splendid facility, a Rolls Royce hospital in some ways in its technical equipment and what it has to offer in its building. So much of it is lying idle and we must deal with that.
There is also a scarce supply of hospital specialists, who currently have to provide their services from three different hospital sites, and the whole system is relatively inefficient. This means that there are occasions when patients with multiple symptoms, those who are severely ill, may not always have good access to particular specialists. This Government, medical practitioners and health professionals alike believe that by bringing together all major specialties on one site there will be a significant improvement in the quality of care, including increased opportunities for peer review, research and education.
There are many people with great attachment to one or other hospital and it is sad that we do not have the facilities to keep them all going; no-one is altogether happy about that. But there is not any doubt that money would be more effectively spent in the Woden Valley Hospital than elsewhere at the present time.
I would now like to move on to the Government's commitment in this matter. As part of its commitment to improving the
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