Page 3662 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 20 October 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR KAINE: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. I did exhort the Minister to keep to the small picture, but he slipped a cog and went back into big picture mode and he did not answer my question. But I did detect in what he said that the waiting list will continue to increase.
Mr Berry: I said that there would be more pressure on it.
MR KAINE: May I be quite specific about that. Does the Minister agree that the waiting list will be bigger after the Christmas wind-down of activity in the hospital than it is now?
MR BERRY: There is an absence of understanding of what occurs.
Ms Follett: They are requesting an opinion, anyway.
MR BERRY: This is an opinion, but I will just explain to you a little bit about the waiting lists. We explained to those - - -
Mr Kaine: Could you just say yes or no, Minister.
MR BERRY: No. You have to get the full picture. We explain to visiting medical officers who use our hospital system that we are making more efficient use of our beds and we are using a strategic plan for bed management.
Mrs Carnell: So you are closing paediatric surgery for six weeks.
MR BERRY: Electives. Elective surgery is wound down at these traditional times, as it was under Mr Humphries. Doctors, of course, do not book patients in for elective surgery when they know that the hospital is being wound down.
Mrs Carnell: It is closed.
MR BERRY: No, the hospital is not closed. The hospital is well and truly open. If at that time you happen to have anything wrong with you that requires hospitalisation, Mrs Carnell, front to accident and emergency. Whilst they might shrink back in horror, they will still give you proper treatment. You will get treated like any other person in the community, despite all your criticism of the public hospital system. Mr Kaine said that I said that the waiting list would grow. No, I did not say that. I said that there would be more pressure on it.
ACTEW Services
MR LAMONT: My question is directed to the Minister for Urban Services. Is the Minister aware of the results of the recent survey of the provision of electricity and water services in Australia, and could the Minister provide details on how ACTEW compares with other Australian service providers as shown by those survey results?
Mr De Domenico: Is this the same thing that was in the paper this morning?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .