Page 2288 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 1993
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All these are exceedingly sensible things that we have actually adopted in many ways. They then went on to say:
The hospice should be located adjacent to an existing hospital. The Residency at Calvary could readily be modified to provide a very satisfactory unit ...
So, after an exceedingly detailed study of where we were heading - not just where we want to put some bricks and mortar for a hospice, but where we want to put a very important part of our health services to the people of the ACT, that is, our palliative care service - they say, right at the end, that the hospice should be located adjacent to an existing hospital and that the residency at Calvary would be appropriate. That seems fairly definite.
Mr Berry has made, I think, some very interesting comments about this wonderful group of people who, as he tried to indicate, suggested that the hospital should go on Acton Peninsula. One of the things we have to remember is that at about this time an Acton planning study was commissioned. Mr Berry actually quoted from it. This was in December 1991 and Richard Glenn and Associates were commissioned to do it. Mr Berry quoted very selectively from this. It was quite interesting. I will quote from it as well. Both reports talk about the Ian Maddocks and Ruth Redpath report, which I have already quoted from, and the palliative care working party, the group of wonderful professionals, ACT based, who supposedly know. Anyway, I quote Richard Glenn and Associates:
Both reports endorsed the provision of a Palliative Care Unit, both endorsed its provision adjacent to, but not within an acute hospital, each supported the unit being sited at Calvary Hospital, the Consultant's report recommended a 15 bed unit initially, -
and rightly, as Mr Berry said, and this is where he was very selective -
with the provision of a second unit ... whereas the Working Party recommended a single unit of twenty beds ...
Each recommended that home-based palliative care be integrated, and so on. So each of those reports, according to this paper that Mr Berry quoted from, suggested that it should be sited at Calvary Hospital. The report then goes on - and this is, I think, a very important bit:
Calvary Hospital recommended a fifteen bed hospice with an additional four beds for Pain Control.
In September 1991 the Government, Mr Berry, made a decision to proceed with the hospice project on the Acton site. This report is a consequence of that decision.
Mr De Domenico: That is right.
MRS CARNELL: No, no. After Mr Berry made the decision a working party was convened, and the working party consisted of all of the people that Mr Berry spoke of. So we find out that Mr Berry announced the Acton site and then set up the working party. It does not seem as though this working party really had the clean slate that Mr Humphries gave his consultants. Interestingly, this report
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