Page 450 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 1993
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I think $6.5m per year was supposed to be saved by the closure of Royal Canberra Hospital. We have closed the hospital but now we might ask where the $6.5m is. I think everybody in Canberra - - -
Mr Kaine: That is just about the size of his overspend this year.
MRS CARNELL: It is, but it was supposed to be the other way; it was supposed to be a saving. I think everybody in Canberra could be forgiven for asking that question: Why do we still have a budget overrun when we have just closed a hospital? I think we really should look at what the ACT has got for the extra - and I say "extra" - money that we are spending on health. I will say it again: We have spent $13m more. So let us look at some of the other things. I can accept that maybe if Mr Berry had spent the money on other things that were tangible we might excuse it. I am not sure that the Treasurer would, but we might.
We might look at bed numbers. Let us look at bed numbers over the last three years. In 1990 bed numbers were 862. In 1991 they were 891. In 1992 the official figure was 819. Unfortunately, we really do not have 819 beds, but we will allow for a certain amount of poetic licence on behalf of the Government. That means that we are actually almost 100 beds short of what we have previously had. That means that in the ACT we have 2.7 public hospital beds per 1,000 population. The Australian average is in excess of 4.5 beds per 1,000. The Macklin report suggested that possibly - and I stress "possibly" - by the year 2000, taking into account improved surgical procedures, better day surgery and so on, we may be able to achieve 3.3 beds per 1,000. We have 2.7 now. Where is the ACT heading? Down the gurgler - that is all you can say.
Mr Berry seemed to get very concerned with Mr Westende's comments that possibly people's health in the ACT might be suffering as a result of his financial management. I know that Mr Westende did not say "because of our doctors and nurses" because they are wonderful. Every day - and I am sure that the Minister gets the same - I get phone calls from people who have not been able to get into hospital. I get phone calls from people like the lady two weeks ago who saw her GP on Tuesday, was diagnosed as having a carotid artery obstruction, saw the specialist on Thursday morning who believed that an operation was urgent but could not get her a bed until the following Monday. That is just unacceptable. If Mr Berry believes that that is not putting the health of Canberrans at risk, I honestly do not know what is.
Let us progress a little further. Let us look at waiting lists. Have we done better in waiting lists for the same sort of period? In December 1990 no figures were available. We had not learnt to count then. But by February 1991 we had a waiting list of somewhere in the vicinity of 1,700. By 1991 it was 1,800. In 1992 we cracked the 2,000 and it was 2,045. Those figures do not look too good either.
We might look past the hospitals now. Let us look at community health and let us see whether that is where all of this $13m-plus is disappearing. Community nursing is a particularly important area because if the average length of stays continues to reduce, as the Minister regularly suggests is going to be the answer to all of our problems, it does not require an Einstein to realise that we are going to need more community nurses, more domiciliary care. Let us look at
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