Page 3670 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 15 October 1991
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the former Government for many of its actions, as was the Labor Party; but, when it comes to the issue of community health, nobody was more critical of the previous Government's performance than Labor.
There was a cry by the former Minister that there was an imbalance of, for example, health centre services on the northside. There were more on the northside and fewer on the southside, but then he closed one on the southside. It seemed to be an odd sort of an arrangement. Then he left one in the Tuggeranong Valley closed because he had not budgeted for its opening. But after a public campaign, in which I was proud to be involved, the centre was opened. Those sorts of initiatives were taken by Labor when in opposition. But they will pale into insignificance when it comes to the issues that we are going to deal with in government. We are going to be in government for a long time, and we are about a full recovery of our health system.
Mr Moore raised the issue of the payment of expenses for people who have to travel to Sydney for necessary care. I will take on board what he said in respect of those constituents who contacted him. I will inquire into it with his assistance, because I think, too, that, where it is appropriate, there should be access to expenses and that the process of getting access to them should take account of the circumstances of the people who are ill. I am sure that no medical practitioner within the public hospital system would tell a patient to travel by bus to Sydney for an appointment if he or she thought some risk was involved, and I hope that Mr Moore was not imputing that that is the case.
Mr Speaker, the cardio-thoracic and bypass surgery that has been the subject of some debate in the ACT is of concern. In a perfect world the people of the ACT and the south-east region would be able to have access to that sort of surgery in the ACT. I think there is some likelihood that that will happen in the future. But the circumstances here are not much different from those in New South Wales. For example, I know pretty closely of someone who suffered from cardiac difficulties and who was required in the end to have some bypass surgery done. He was, first of all, stabilised in a local hospital at Blacktown and was there for some weeks before he was eventually transferred to Westmead to have the surgery. Immediately he was well enough to be taken out of Westmead, he was removed.
It will always be the case that patients who have to have this sort of surgery may spend some time in one hospital and be transferred to another. As I have said, in a perfect world it would be best if one could move into a hospital that is close to where one lives and have that sort of surgery. More and more, I think, that will occur. Those sorts of developments will take place in the ACT, I think, in due course.
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