Page 4210 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 23 October 1991
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Mr Kaine: Which is for a personal explanation. You claim to have been misrepresented.
MR BERRY: Mr Kaine is correct this time. This is about a personal explanation. It is about ensuring that the Assembly is properly informed about the events which surround this issue.
Mr Jensen: I raise a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I refer you to the final clause of standing order 46, which says:
... but such matters may not be debated.
I suggest that Mr Berry has been debating the issue for about the last three or four minutes.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Berry, just come to the point about how you claim to have been misrepresented.
MR BERRY: I am not debating the issue. I have brought before the Assembly all the matters I wish to bring before it and I am finished on the matter.
MR HUMPHRIES (5.21): I can see that there is considerable sensitivity about these matters. I think we might see why. I thank the Assembly for suspending standing orders to allow me to make this statement.
I rise to bring to the Assembly's attention a very serious matter concerning an officer of the ACT Ambulance Service and the way in which he responded to a cry for help from a resident of this Territory. It also involves the Minister for Health, Mr Berry, and his reluctance to allow public scrutiny of this matter. The incident to which I refer occurred on 16 July this year. At about 11.00 pm on that day, a Canberra solicitor, Mr Peter Harris, rang for an ambulance after his fiancee began to suffer excruciating pains in her head.
Mr Harris did not dial the 000 number but rather the direct ambulance line, 249 8133. He explained to the ambulance officer he contacted that he needed an ambulance and described the condition of his fiancee. He said that his fiancee was unable to get into his car to be taken to hospital. Mr Harris said that he was told, effectively, that the Ambulance Service look after only sick people and not people with headaches. Mr Harris was further advised that Calvary was full and Royal Canberra Hospital was closed, and that the officer was not prepared to dispatch an ambulance. The officer asked whether it was possible to contact a doctor. When Mr Harris was unable to ascertain the name of his fiancee's doctor, the officer provided the name of the locum service.
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