Page 4006 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 22 October 1991
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MR BERRY: And how they will be provided in beds in our hospitals, so that we get the focus back on the question, so that the complaints and whingeing will stop.
MR SPEAKER: Please get to it, Mr Berry.
MR BERRY: I have made available to Mr Humphries a range of options announced by the Hospital Board, the board that he initiated, as to how they will deal with Labor's budget. The board have said to me that they can live within the budget which has been set. They have provided a range of options which will result in the delivery of better hospital services, not only in the next year. We are going through a difficult period in the provision of hospital services in the Territory because of the reparation that has to be made to the hospital system.
Mr Speaker, Mr Stefaniak talks about bed numbers. It needs to be made clear to him on the issue of beds that the keynote of this budget is improved efficiency, not the provision of private hospital beds, as it was under Mr Humphries. We are pursuing a disciplined approach to financial management, while protecting Labor's fundamental commitment to social justice. That is something to which the other side never pretended they had any commitment in the past.
The health budget has been constructed in accordance with these principles. That would be foreign to Mr Stefaniak. There will be a reduced requirement for some services as we achieve increased efficiencies through such measures as the introduction of an integrated day surgery unit, the introduction of initial antenatal sessions to reduce antenatal admissions, reduced average length of stay, in line with national trends, and greater use of a pre-admission clinic.
It is wrong to focus on the number of beds which, according to Mr Stefaniak, might be cut. This is about the provision of better services within the resources available in the public hospital system. This is a new approach, Mr Speaker, to the provision of hospital services in the ACT, and it is something that the Liberal members would not understand. But they will have to come to terms with it because at the end of the day our public hospital system will be in a much better condition, irrespective of the damage that has been caused by these people opposite, when Labor gets through with the process.
Mr Kaine: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I must again draw your attention to standing order 118. The Minister has again proved that this question time is a nonsense, because he refuses to answer the question. Mr Speaker, I specifically draw your attention to the last part of standing order 118, which says that you may direct a member
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