Page 3999 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 23 November 1993
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The Estimates Committee believed that it was very hard to reconcile activity levels, waiting lists and demographic trends, as previously talked about. It appears, as we see again in the activity reports, that waiting lists in the first quarter of this financial year went up again by some 300. This would tend to indicate that the concerns expressed in the committee have been validated.
Mr Berry: No, the waiting lists have not gone up 300.
MRS CARNELL: Mr Berry is suggesting that the waiting lists or the booking lists or whatever we want to say - - -
Mr Berry: Get it all right.
MRS CARNELL: I will just quote from the activity report, Mr Berry:
Waiting lists, including booked patients, have increased over the previous quarter to 3,418 compared to 3,119 in the June quarter.
Waiting lists, according to the activity report, have gone up by 300 in the last quarter.
Mr Berry: But they have not gone up by 1,600, as you said in your press release. They have gone up by only 1,000, haven't they?
MRS CARNELL: They have gone up by 300 in the last quarter. The committee - and I think that Mr Moore also made this comment - noted the comments made by Mr Berry about the difference between patients on waiting lists who had a booking date and those who did not. He suggested that the committee's comments in that area were unjustified. The committee noted that if you gave a significant number of people on the waiting list a booking date - in other words, you booked them in for surgery - however unrealistic that date was, the list would in fact disappear. It is fascinating. In this activity report, that is exactly what the Government has done. In fact, the Government has extended the period in which people will be given a booking date. In other words, they have booked further ahead. Doing that has actually achieved a decrease in the average waiting list over the period of time.
Mr Berry: No; that is wrong. You have got it wrong.
MRS CARNELL: That is exactly what your report says.
Mr Berry: No. You have got it wrong again. You are dead wrong.
MRS CARNELL: Madam Speaker, I am happy to have an ongoing conversation here. It appears that the Government took heed of what the Estimates Committee was talking about, but not quite in the way the Estimates Committee had in mind, which is somewhat unfortunate. The committee also expressed its concern about funding for the methadone program and expressed its concern that information that was given to the Estimates Committee in the 1992 estimates procedure appeared to be somewhat embellished - - -
Mr Berry: What does that mean? Tell me what that means. Give us the figures.
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