Page 2811 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 14 August 1990
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many of them doctors and senior professors, who put in submissions to this particular inquiry. And also at appendix C we see a list of those people interviewed over a five-day period. In fact, more than 52 people were interviewed during that period. Also, in appendix A of the report we find a copy of a detailed letter seeking submissions of interest. This letter is dated 25 August, and it was sent to 11 interested organisations. These organisations read like a Who's Who of the medical profession in the ACT. There is the Postgraduate Education Committee, the Postgraduate Committee in Medicine ANU, the AMA, the Medical Staff Committee, the John Curtin School of Medical Research. Need I go on? There is a quite considerable number of those organisations.
So clearly Mr Berry must not have been talking about that sort of consultation and that sort of submission when he was making his comments. I am not quite sure what to think about that, but clearly Mr Berry's brain must have been addled by something that he ate at dinner.
However, let me move on and make some more comments in relation to the suggestion that the ACT could, in fact, have a clinical school established here. The report envisaged that this school would provide a clinical training component of the normal undergraduate medical degree, and it would be conducted over three years at the Australian National University. There is no doubt that the establishment of a clinical school in Canberra would greatly enhance the quality of health services.
I know that there has been some talk about the relationship between the Royal Canberra Hospital and the ANU, because they are so close, but I am sure members need no reminding that there are activities taking place between the John Curtin school of medicine and the Woden Valley Hospital. That seems to work quite successfully. I also know of many places around Australia where medical schools are able to operate quite effectively with the hospital and university some miles apart.
This occurs in cities that are even more congested than this city of ours. Most of us know that it takes, at the most, 20 to 25 minutes to get from one side of Canberra to the other. So I suggest that it would not be a major problem if the clinical medical school was eventually located at the Woden Valley Hospital, which, as I understand it, will eventually be renamed the Royal Canberra Hospital in accordance with the normal traditions of these sorts of activities. It is not the first time that that has happened in Australia and I am sure it will not be the last.
Such a clinical school would expand the opportunities for research and teaching well beyond present levels. It would set in place the foundations for a transition to full medical undergraduate education around the end of this century. The Australian National University is keen to
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