Page 2776 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 October 1992
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Mr De Domenico: "Cartel" is touch and go too.
MR LAMONT: It was touch and go, I know, Mr De Domenico. "The Carnell cartel" had a ring to it. That is the only reason I was going to use it, but I will not.
Mr Cornwell: But you will withdraw it, won't you?
MR LAMONT: Of course I would. Mrs Carnell's Bill exposes the worst excesses, in my view, of that attitude which says that you privatise the profits and socialise the losses. Anybody who goes along with the proposal that Mrs Carnell's Bill espouses, in my view, is wrong, and this Assembly should reject it.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (8.52), in reply: The Government proposal to expand the methadone treatment program into public sector facilities has major advantages as an alternative to that which is being proposed by Mrs Carnell, and I want to revisit some of those advantages. The first is the high quality of care the Government can provide, catering for individual needs. The Government proposes to meet the increased demand for methadone treatment by amending the Drugs of Dependence Act to enable any government facility to be used as a distribution point for methadone treatment. Initially, health centres in central, northern and southern Canberra are proposed, but location and hours of operation will be tailored as far as possible to client needs. That puts to rest all those silly figurings Mrs Carnell did earlier.
Under Mrs Carnell's proposal, any pharmacy can apply to become an approved treatment centre - or all of them, indeed - as a matter of commercial interest.
Mr De Domenico: Can apply, and you can knock them all back, if you want to.
MR BERRY: Somebody squawks out "apply", but there is no provision in Mrs Carnell's approach to have them rejected, on any grounds. So, they could all apply - - -
Mrs Carnell: But the Board of Health makes the rules.
MR BERRY: They just make the rules like that, says Mrs Carnell. Little account is taken of the actual demand for service and whether it is likely to meet client needs. Michael Moore knows what I am talking about. Methadone treatment is best provided by people with extensive experience in the delivery of this form of care who are responsive to changes in client needs.
Mrs Carnell raised another little red herring in relation to the position of nurses in the administering of methadone. I can tell Mrs Carnell that supplying methadone to a given client for later consumption involves the preparation and labelling of a bottle dose, according to a prescription written by a medical practitioner. This procedure can be carried out by a pharmacist or a medical practitioner or a person under the personal supervision of a medical practitioner or a pharmacist, such as a nurse.
Interstate experience of pharmacy distribution suggests that clients may develop problems which are sometimes not identified early enough to prevent a dangerous situation arising. None of these things was looked at in the context of the committee inquiry. They were infatuated, and I suspect that there was a bit of horse-trading about securing support for particular positions which gave us the eventual outcome - - -
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