Page 2636 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 1993
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Madam Speaker, the number of times complaints and problems with our system have arisen is just too numerous to mention. I mention only one - a report in April this year about a man, a cancer patient, who arrived at Woden Valley Hospital for scheduled chemotherapy treatment. He was told that there was no room for him at the hospital and he would not be able to receive treatment because the ACT Government had decided to close 56 hospital beds until Monday - that was Easter time of course - in order to save money. He contacted the Canberra Times again and was reported as having said:
When I went in for radiotherapy, I spoke to a man - he must have been in his late 60s - who was there for chemotherapy. There was no bed for him and apparently he was told he had to sleep overnight on a trolley in the oncology department.
Mr Berry: You would never convict anybody on that sort of hearsay evidence, Gary.
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, the Minister calls this hearsay. If the Minister does not realise that these things are happening all the time, virtually every week, in our hospitals, he does not deserve the title of Minister for Health for the Australian Capital Territory. But he does know that it is happening. He knows that it is happening because his staff are telling him, his public servants are telling him. It does go on and it is a disgrace. Madam Speaker, we should be directing resources, valuable resources, whatever resources come our way, towards making sure that those very important needs are being met, and they are not being met. A hundred thousand dollars would go a very significant way towards establishing facilities to overcome this problem - for example, establishing and resourcing a new operating theatre or new beds to achieve that kind of purpose. These are only some of those needs, Madam Speaker, but there are others.
Madam Speaker, a child with cerebral palsy in this community can get physiotherapy only once every six weeks in this Territory. That is shameful; that is a disgrace. People in nursing homes have almost non-existent dental care at this time. Do you realise that, Mr Berry? If you happen to break your dentures in a nursing home in this Territory you are going to have to wait something like three months to get those dentures fixed - three months when you cannot eat any solid food. It is not very attractive, is it? They are the things, Madam Speaker, that I think any decent government would be looking at in the way of prioritising their spending in health. They are the things I think we would be looking at.
But let us look at another priority which is also apparently on the Government's agenda - an abortion clinic. The proposal is a purpose built clinic in the City Health Centre which is combined with some other service, so it is padded out a bit; but abortion is the only new service being conducted at that facility. Some would argue that we need that new facility. Some would say that women should not need to travel to Sydney to obtain health services of this kind. But let us examine the extent of this need, Madam Speaker.
Mr Connolly: That is what Mrs Carnell said on 23 June 1992.
MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed, many argue that case, even some on this side.
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