Page 2656 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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Other desirable facilities such as a hospice, convalescent facilities and a modern nursing home are not part of the Alliance Government's project and additional funds will have to be found. The funds involved are considerable: For a new hospice, $2.1m in capital, with recurrent costs of $2.3m a year. Of course, they were drastically underestimated by the Alliance when they put forward their proposal.
Mr Humphries: Rubbish!
MR BERRY: Did you cite recurrent costs of $2.3m a year? I say that you did not.
Mr Humphries: You have changed it; that is why.
MR BERRY: Because we examined it properly; that is the proper value.
Mr Humphries: Are they 1989 dollars or 1991 dollars?
MR BERRY: There is an amount of $1.7m for a convalescent centre and recurrent expenditure of $1.2m a year. That is a bit different from what you have been saying, too. So, get your figures right, old son.
Provision of modern nursing home facilities could result in savings in recurrent expenditure, but at a capital cost of $5m. There are too many ifs and buts in your figures; that is the difficulty. With cost blow-outs in health expenditure and massive commitments to the redevelopment project, funding for these additional facilities can be found only over time. However, we have made a start by adding a hospice, to be located on the Acton site, on the 1991-92 forward design program. This will enable construction to commence next year. So, that puts that to bed.
I have also asked the Board of Health to look at other short-term measures to reduce the time people are waiting for elective surgery, particularly by enhancing the availability of day surgery procedures. That is a priority for this Government. The former Government allowed the hospital waiting lists to blow out by a massive amount, causing a great deal of discomfort and pain in the community. This is what the former Government was about. They created a monster for the Labor Government.
It will be difficult to redress the waiting lists for surgery which were created by the former Government - waiting lists which almost doubled in that 18 months. That is a disgraceful performance by any measure, and the Labor Government is now making a commitment to do something about it. We are not going to be able to do it in five minutes, because it has become entrenched in the hospital system through the mismanagement of the former Minister.
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