Page 2443 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 1993
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The point I want to make is that my motion is aimed specifically at the methodology used to categorise and fund patients into specifically built dementia units. We are not even really talking about more money necessarily, although that could possibly flow. What we are talking about is that the personal care assessment process that people go through when they are assessed to gain admission to one of these facilities is absolutely inappropriate. We are talking about the funding formula that is used and the assessment formula that is used for people with advanced dementia requiring full care in an institutional place of some kind. That is what we are really talking about here. We are not talking about the pros and cons of Federal governments or $40m in somebody's piggy bank. Those are ridiculous cheap shots on a very serious subject. You only have to sit down as I have done on several occasions and talk to the people from the Uniting Church who are behind, as we know, the construction of Eabrai Lodge - - -
Mrs Carnell: We were there. Your mob were not.
MS ELLIS: I beg your pardon?
Mr Humphries: We were there.
MS ELLIS: Yes, and so was I, Mrs Carnell; thank you very much. We only have to talk to those people to find out the real requirement that they have of the Federal Government. It is not to turn around and say that there has been fund cutting here and fund cutting there. I did not hear that from the Uniting Church people. What I did hear from them was that we need to - - -
Mrs Carnell: You said that they were 150,000 bucks down the tube.
MS ELLIS: Excuse me, Mrs Carnell, but I am trying to make a point here and you make it extremely difficult. What I did hear from them is the need for the Federal Government - the Federal Government, period - to make a proper assessed approach to the way they handle dementia people needing care in a purpose built facility.
There are a couple of points that I would like to pick up from the debate earlier. As I have already said, I really think that the sorts of comments made by Mrs Carnell, as much as we value her comments, were quite churlish. I do not think that they attacked the motion in the true sense in which it was put forward and the words used. There are people at home who have dementia and who are being cared for by their relatives and friends; but, as I said in my speech in June, the problem at the moment is that they do not have very many options outside of that because encouragement to build Eabrai Lodges around the country is not there because of the funding formula problem. It is a very simple connection to make. I cannot understand why you failed to make that logical connection as clearly as I seem to be able to do. I agree that the high cost mentioned by Mrs Carnell which is to be experienced by Mirinjani at Eabrai is prohibitive. That is the very reason why the motion went on the notice paper in the first place. But it is not the responsibility of this Government here in this town to do something about that; it is the responsibility of the Federal Government.
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