Page 2286 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 1993
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MR BERRY: Build a purpose built facility. I heard somebody interject, "Some of the experts". Well, two oncology specialists, a GP, a community nurse, an assistant director of nursing, the director of social work, a nominee from Calvary, the Hospice Society, two palliative care nurses, the AIDS Action Council, and ACT Public Works. A former president of the Hospice Society wrote to the Canberra Times and said that it was a good idea too. I would think that they would know what they were talking about.
The Government has examined the possible use of existing facilities and will continue to do so in consideration of other health facilities being placed on the Acton Peninsula. However, in the case of the hospice, it is regarded as essential to provide a facility that is homelike and comforting for both the patients and their families, as I said earlier. The patients in a hospice are the most vulnerable in our community and it is important that we accord them the respect that they deserve - not by taking short cuts to the provision of a make-do facility, but by providing the best the community can offer in a facility dedicated to the special needs of the dying.
Mr Deputy Speaker, again, it has not been disputed by any of the facilities consulted throughout Australia that a purpose built facility is infinitely preferable to the refurbishment of existing space. We have an opportunity to build a first-class facility at Acton. I should say that there has been another campaign of misinformation bandied around in relation to the flood plain. Continually I have heard people say, "This facility is going to be threatened by the 100-year flood". It happens to be 1.7 metres above the 500-year floodline and it is between the 500-year and 10,000-year floodlines. That sort of misinformation by people campaigning for the hospice to be somewhere else is just a mischief. We do not need those sorts of comments about this facility. The Cottage Hospice in Western Australia commended the ACT Government on our plans for the hospice. The Cottage Hospice is a stand-alone facility and does not have operational problems. On the contrary, it promotes the palliative rather than the acute care model. The plans for the hospice are exciting, Mr Deputy Speaker, and forward thinking. I believe that the Government will be very proud to have this facility located in the ACT and that we will have a reputation for best practice in palliative care that will be unsurpassed in Australia. Mr Deputy Speaker, we made this election promise and we are proud to keep it.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (4.36): Mr Berry was correct in saying that negotiations for the hospice began in the early 1980s, and they continued through all sorts of permutations and combinations of ACT Health before self-government. They had progressed to the stage where, on 12 June 1987, a Hospital Services Board memo recommended that, rather than set up a hospice facility at Woden Valley Hospital, the following action should be taken: Firstly, support the establishment of a 20-bed hospice facility at Calvary Hospital as a priority issue; and, secondly, provide equipment to assist in the care of the terminally ill patients and so on. This was all to do with setting up a hospice at Calvary Hospital. That was in 1987.
We progressed from there, as I mentioned earlier, in question time, to a number of memos while Mr Berry was Minister for Health, all still talking at length about the need to have a hospice at Calvary. There is no point in having the best facility in Australia, the best run, and all the best bells and whistles, if you cannot afford
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