Page 3804 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 October 1991
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forget that the Board of Health, set up by the former Minister, has an Ethics Committee, and I am sure that the considerations of the Ethics Committee would cut across some of the terms of reference mentioned in the motion. It has a Health Care and Complaints Committee. I wonder whether that cuts across the - - -
Mr Humphries: Rubbish!
MR BERRY: Your proposed terms of reference mention the impact on the quality of patient care, and the Board of Health has a Health Care and Complaints Committee. What do you want to do - overtake that role? There is the Finance and Audit Committee in the Board of Health's management area, the Hospital Redevelopment Committee, the Research and Education Committee, and the Resources and Services Development Committee - and you are going to try to do the work proposed for this committee by 1 December. This is grandstanding in the extreme - no more than that.
The facts are that this Government has bravely taken the health budget in the ACT in hand and that we intend to make the hospitals work more efficiently. We also intend to keep our finger on the pulse - something that the former Minister was unable to achieve. Whilst I, personally, still have some reservations about financial management in our hospitals, we intend to provide the resources necessary for the hospitals to improve their own situation. We have done that. We have provided $385,000 for the further development of the Fiscal system, and I will be visiting Woden Valley Hospital today to see how developments are going in that respect. It is important that we get on with the job and do not just talk about it.
We know that financial management in our hospital system is an important political issue and, of course, we have to ensure that we are focused on it - and we are. At the end of the day, Mr Humphries, your committee will achieve nothing. The terms of reference assume, of course, that bed numbers are the only indicator of consequence to issues of quality of patient care and waiting lists. This, of course, is patent nonsense. You ought to know that.
Mr Moore: You used to tell him that all the time last year.
MR BERRY: Mr Moore chuckles behind me, as he often does. Mr Moore obviously does not understand it either. But Mr Moore, hungry for issues, of course, is keen to get on this one as well. You and Mr Humphries will have to get a big pushbike, because there will be a lot of you trying to ride on this one - and there is nothing in it, I can tell you. If you are to reasonably investigate what goes on in the hospital system, it will take you a month of Sundays - not just a few weeks - and you will not be here to deliver the report.
Mr Humphries: We are sensitive about this, aren't we?
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