Page 268 - Week 01 - Thursday, 24 February 1994
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Mr Humphries: There is no surgery.
MR BERRY: That is right, and it reduces the number of operating rooms available for elective surgery.
Mr Humphries: And increases the waiting list?
MR BERRY: No, no.
Mr Humphries: It does not? It does not increase the waiting list. That is good to know.
MR BERRY: One of the things that you have to understand, Mr Humphries, and you never learnt it when you were a Health Minister, is that you have to be efficient within the hospital system and a range of people do take rostered days off.
Mr Kaine: That is efficient?
MR BERRY: That is just stupidity, Trevor. That is the sort of nonsense that was the hallmark of your leadership of a government in this place - just sheer stupidity. You could not even control Mr Humphries in relation to his health matters, and with that sort of stupid notion in your mind I am not surprised.
Mr Kaine: That is the theory you propound every time you get up and answer a question - fewer beds, better efficiency, RDOs, shorter waiting lists.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MR BERRY: As the Victorian Secretary of the Health Department said, we do not treat beds in the ACT; we treat people. There is this infatuation with beds. What about some concern about the people who do not want to stay in hospital, who want to get out? What a bunch of gooses!
Mr De Domenico: They are trying to get in, though. That is the problem. They are trying to get in and they cannot.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Would the members of the Opposition desist from interjecting. Mr Berry is endeavouring to answer your question. Proceed, Mr Berry.
MR BERRY: Thank you. As members might remember, there was a budget, although they do not seem to take much notice of that - except for Mrs Carnell, who says that all it takes is more money, because she whips down to her backyard and plucks a few notes off the money tree, with the help of the little fairies who are dancing underneath it. As a budget initiative there has been a common accrued day off rostered for nursing staff and the operating theatres at Woden Valley Hospital. This occurs on the fourth Friday of the operating room schedule and affects only one day in every four weeks - a sensible measure.
Mr Cornwell: Why?
MR BERRY: It is a sensible measure because it ensures that as many people as possible who are entitled to rostered days off take them at the one time instead of having a disruptive approach to allocating those rostered days off. It is a sensible measure.
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