Page 5131 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 12 December 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
nursing is going to provide a situation where people are healthier, and the healthier they are, the less time they are going to have to spend in hospitals. Hospitals are the most expensive part of our whole health care system. I am sure Mr Humphries would agree with that concept. So, what we should be seeing is not a situation where community nursing is being closed down in neighbourhoods, but where it is being expanded.
Those community nurses ought not just to be looking after mothers and babies - though that is certainly an important part of their function - they ought not just to be looking after the elderly. There is a whole range of duties that community nurses can perform, and that range is quite open to improvement and open to the sorts of ideas that will come from a very healthy organisation, from an organisation that has a strong morale. The community nursing organisation in this city, particularly on the north side, is in exactly the opposite position. Its members are suffering from low morale, they are under attack, the areas are being shut down and they are finding that they are being herded into much bigger areas where they have to approach people through the use of their vehicles instead of having both options. It is important that they be seen as part and parcel of the community in which they work, and that cannot happen while we have a situation where they are under attack.
I draw Mr Humphries' attention to that, and I draw the attention of the new hospital board to that; but I make it quite clear, of course, that I do support this Bill in principle. The new hospital board ought to look very closely at those community nurses and how they fulfil their functions, how we can encourage them to fulfil their functions better and how we can build their morale. And it is certainly not by closing down the centres from which they operate. Rather, it is by making those centres much more comfortable, much closer to the community and by their fulfilling as many functions as they possibly can in the community.
That is not to say that the actual buildings themselves could not be collocated, in the same way as some preschools have been. I think that it is possible, in fact, that they could well be collocated to schools. They could have a very important educative function. They already have an educative function, but that educative function could be extended to the students themselves and, of course, to their parents.
With reference specifically to the Bill, I draw attention to clause 17 of the Bill before us, which reads:
An appointed member shall be paid such remuneration and allowances as are prescribed.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .