Page 279 - Week 01 - Thursday, 24 February 1994
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Of course, Madam Speaker, there are some opponents of this. Some of them have a Liberal Party ticket burning a hole in their pocket, some have a concern of their own about the matter; but overwhelmingly there is support for the establishment of a hospice on this site. It is a sensible decision. Of course, some in the upper levels of the medical profession would argue for it to be closer to a hospital because they do not like travel time, but we are taking into account a number of things. We are taking into account the significant cultural nature of that site. There is some significance in that site for the whole of Canberra. The Liberals would forget that, but it is a sensible place for the location of that facility.
I go past the site fairly regularly, and each time I am more convinced that the decision was right. Everybody I know who understands the cultural nature of that site is with me on that. At the end of the day, it will be a facility that will be efficient, it will be broad-based, and it will have all the connections it needs to the health system to provide comfort and well-being for those who end up there and who die there, as well as for those important members of their family and their carers. The professionals who work in that environment need special attention too. That site is ideal, on all grounds. I cannot, for the life of me, see how the Liberals can stoop to the sorts of gutter tactics they have used in relation to this facility, when they must know in their own hearts that this is a good place for this sort of facility. Politicking is good fun, but sometimes you have to look at the good sense side of it too. The Liberals probably never will, but you can rely on the Labor Party and other sensible people around this place to focus on a sensible opportunity. This is a sensible opportunity and one that will not be lost.
Mrs Carnell has used this opportunity to bag the public health system. She has not been a great supporter of the public health system since she has been here. She has always been a critic of it, continually trying to drag it down. I have just demonstrated again to this Assembly that the public hospital system in the ACT is performing better now than it ever has, save for the attack on it by the VMOs. I will go through those figures again; Mr Humphries might remember them for his next speech. In 1991, 47,300 people were treated in 867 beds. We were more efficient the next year, with 47,976 treated in 825 beds; in 1992-93 50,542 were treated in 797 beds; and this year the target is 50,500, save for the loss of productivity caused by the strike by the doctors, and we will do that in fewer beds per capita as well.
This is about efficiencies in the public hospital system, falling lengths of stay, and day surgery. Some 35 per cent of our patients are treated in day surgery, and Mrs Carnell wants to leave that out of the equation. I am afraid that the predictions are that by the year 2000 we will be doing 50 per cent of our patients in day surgery and there will be fewer beds. That is more good news for the community because, as I said earlier, I do not know of anybody who craves an overnight stay in hospital. They want to get out as quickly as they can, and most of them will be ignoring Mrs Carnell. She might apologise for her doctors and be the main apologist for the VMOs, but there is no excuse for that. This is a good decision and it will stand.
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