Page 2284 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 1993
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decision to place the hospice on Acton Peninsula, co-located with other health facilities. That has been our clear position all the way along. I announced this decision in the Legislative Assembly in August 1991. It was reaffirmed in our election commitments in February 1992, and in 1992 the Government agreed in principle to the provision of $3m for a hospice in the 1992-93 capital works program.
The Opposition has stated that patients will be disadvantaged by not being co-located with a hospital and that patients will require constant visits to acute facilities for various procedures. They are wrong yet again. The Government, in making the decision, considered the fact that a hospice is a specialised health facility that employs complex techniques for symptom control and pain management. The Calvary Hospice at Kogarah in Sydney is a freestanding facility and staff there have found that only a very small number of patients, less than 3 per cent, need to be transferred to an acute hospital for procedures. All treatments, such as blood transfusions, will be managed on the hospice premises. We can expect about 18 to 20 per cent of patients to require these interventions. The clinical nurse consultant at Mary Potter Hospice in Adelaide has stated that being adjacent to a hospital will dictate practice. That is an important statement in the context of delivering a hospice service. This statement is borne out by a swift analysis of the differences between the number of interventions taking place at facilities that are attached to or in the grounds of acute hospitals and those facilities that are freestanding. You should know that Mrs Carnell.
Palliative care workers suggest that acute care hospitals have a "cure" philosophy, and rightly they should have, and find it very difficult to allow a person to die with dignity and without acute intervention. It may sometimes be necessary for a home-based palliative care patient or a hospice patient to be transferred to the hospital for treatment, particularly for radiotherapy which can be used for stabilisation and pain control. Why then do you not argue for the hospice to be located at Woden Valley, where the radiotherapy facilities are? You did not argue that; no way. These transfers will be to Woden Valley Hospital regardless of where the hospice is located. The Daw Park Hospice in the grounds of a repatriation hospital in Adelaide transfers approximately 8 per cent of their patients to the hospital for radiotherapy treatment. That is a big transfer rate. Interestingly, at all the hospice facilities consulted, and there were over 20, whether they were in the grounds of, attached to or freestanding from a major hospital, all the people within those facilities agreed that a hospice did not need - did not need, I repeat - to be co-located with a hospital. They do not need to be co-located. It is for this reason - - -
Mr Humphries: It is better to be.
Mrs Carnell: No, it is just lots cheaper if you are.
MR BERRY: The Liberals say that it is cheaper; that we want cheap facilities in the ACT, not quality facilities.
Mr Humphries: At least we can pay for them.
MR BERRY: Of course, the rich can pay for them and they can have better quality than the poor. This is the sort of stuff that you people dredge up every time you get involved in a debate about any issue of social interest.
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