Page 3667 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 15 October 1991
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Ms Follett: I am glad that you admit it.
MR MOORE: It was indeed flippant, as he suggested. However, it led to an answer which I still feel is entirely inadequate. What the issue deals with is adequate resourcing and service at the very end of the line, and that is what was promised by this Government when they introduced their budget - that there will be no cuts to services.
Mr Berry suggested to us that we should raise issues of a particular nature with him and his office so that they can be resolved. But what these issues do, Mr Berry - and why you would like to deal with them individually - is illustrate what has happened within the health system, which is a complete degradation of the morale that is left. These are just examples that are brought to us to illustrate the damage that has been done to the health system. No doubt, we will have a reply from Mr Berry similar to that which he presented to the Estimates Committee.
I refer to the transcript of the Estimates Committee, at pages 1180 to 1188, in which Mr Berry's responses to questions of this nature were very vague. They gave us the impression that perhaps he would be able to do something, that he really did not want to see services taken away and that he really did want things to be okay, and I am sure that is true. I am sure he really does want to ensure that the services are provided, but it is not enough to hope that they might be provided if you are lucky. We need a Minister who is prepared to take control of this area and work to ensure that people are able to get adequate health care.
I started my speech by referring to a letter that was written by a gentleman about his wife who required triple bypass surgery. Because we do not have a cardio-thoracic unit capable of carrying out that surgery in Canberra, she was sent to St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney. In response to a series of questions of mine in the Estimates Committee, I was given to understand that funds should be available, under these circumstances, for both the patient and the spouse or another carer to fly to Sydney and to be taken care of appropriately there.
According to the letter, when you are an age pensioner and a third-class citizen, this may appear to be okay in theory but in practice it does not turn out. This woman had her cardio-thoracic surgery in St Vincent's Hospital; but her husband was not able to go to Sydney because they simply could not afford it, and the money was not made available to them. In a discussion with them earlier today, they told me that in some cases people assured them, "It is okay; you can spend the money, and then you can put in a claim so that you will then get it back". The reality is
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