Page 2285 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 1993
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Mr Deputy Speaker, it is for this reason that the ACT Palliative Care and Hospice Society rejected the notion of a hospice in the grounds of the Woden Valley Hospital. It was for that very reason. It is also interesting to note that the great majority of people suffering terminal illness die in their own homes. The home-based palliative care service provides for an average of 30 patients at any one time. These patients are satisfactorily maintained at home, and I might add that home is where they want to die. The palliative care service was recently extended to enable people who are without carers to be maintained in their homes. It is these people without carers who have been forced either to remain in hospital or to be transferred to a hospital for their dying days. The hospice will be able to assist these people to spend their final days in surroundings that are peaceful and pain free.
At the same time, Mr Deputy Speaker, we have to think about the family of people who have chosen hospice treatment. We have to think about the carers who continually work with people who have decided to live out their final days in a hospice. You just cannot comprehend a situation where people would support the attachment of something requiring the sort of atmosphere that goes with a well-run hospice to a busy major hospital. It is absolute nonsense. Sure, in other places it has occurred; but, given the choice these days, people would choose to have it away from a major hospital. Experts would so choose.
It is true, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the capital cost of the construction of a hospice within the grounds of Calvary was in the vicinity of $2.5m. However, this is a costing provided by Richard Glenn and Associates in 1991. The hospice will be commissioned in about August 1994 and the capital costs have been contained at about $3m. Also, the facility at Calvary was based on seven single rooms and two four-bed rooms. These are facts that nobody wants to get out because the facts spoil a good story. The hospice at Acton will have 12 single rooms with en suites and only two double rooms. So they are different. Under Labor it will be better.
There has been considerable criticism directed at the Government for the construction of the hospice and the failure to pursue the use of existing buildings, from Bruce Hostel to the isolation block on Acton Peninsula. The hospice working party consisted of two oncology specialists, a GP, a community nurse, an assistant director of nursing from Woden Valley Hospital, the director of social work, a nominee from Calvary, the Hospice Society, two palliative care nurses, the AIDS Action Council, and ACT Public Works. What do you think they came up with? You have got it in one. They came up with a purpose built facility because they knew that this was the opportunity to provide something first class. This is the sort of facility that they came up with.
I have to say that in the early days - I said this to Mr Moore this morning - I had some sympathy for the use of the existing building because, at a glance, it looks like a robust, strong brick building which might be suitable for these sorts of uses. But the overwhelming recommendation of the committee and others was in favour of a purpose built facility and I have accepted that recommendation because what I am about in pursuit of this particular facility is providing something that is first class. I am told by the experts that this is the way you provide a first-class facility.
Mr Humphries: Some of the experts.
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