Page 507 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 1991
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Mr Berry: Have all agencies lodged their plans?
MR KAINE: Well, if you - - -
Mr Wood: It is a requirement.
MR KAINE: A requirement of whom?
Mr Wood: You - for your agencies to do that.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Wood!
Mr Wood: Well, he asked me.
MR SPEAKER: Please address your comments through the Chair.
MR KAINE: This is open question time, Mr Speaker; they can all ask me one while I am on my feet. I am not sure of the status of that. I will get a comprehensive report on it, but I thought I had answered a fairly comprehensive question on equal opportunity only within the last couple of days. I do not know why you keep asking the same question.
Health Clinics
MR MOORE: My question is directed to Mr Humphries as Minister for Health. Minister, can you tell us simply how many health clinics have been closed during the last six months and why they have been closed? The reason I ask the question is that I have had complaints from various members of the public about the level of service to be found in local suburban health clinics, particularly in baby health centres. I refer to the inordinate amount of time - a number of complaints suggest that several hours is in fact a commonly recorded period - that parents and children have to wait in queues in the clinics before being attended to. Mr Humphries, in case you have never had to wait for one of those visits with a couple of small children on your knees, allow me to assure you that a couple of hours of that is a little like purgatory.
MR HUMPHRIES: There have been changes in the structure of various health services. There has not been the closure of health centres which has been suggested by some, but certainly there have been significant changes to baby health centres in the last few months. There has been a move towards all-day clinics for delivery of child health services. That move began in 1988, long before this Government came to office.
It was obvious at that time that the previous neighbourhood clinic model was inefficient in terms of usage of resources. Neighbourhood clinics have provided child
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