Page 432 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 2 March 1994
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Finally, when does the Government intend to do something for those people who are struggling to continue in their own homes and who cannot even get support under the HACC program? Why can they not get support? Because this Government refuses to take Commonwealth money that is available to them, because they will not put up the dollar for dollar money that they are obliged to put up to get it. In fact, last year they did not take advantage of a considerable amount of money that was available to us under the HACC program because they simply would not budget from their own resources the limited amount of dollars that were required to get it. The home and community care program in this Territory at the moment is frozen at the levels that were applying in 1991-92. This is the Government that is concerned about and gives high priority to caring for the ageing. They are going to develop a social justice budget this year. Those ageing people who are waiting for all of these facilities that the Government is going to examine, review and strategise about must really be impressed about the you beaut social justice budget we are going to get.
We can tie this Government's promises, or lack of them, and lack of any commitment whatsoever to the ageing, to the concern of the Minister for Health and the Chief Minister for a charter of patients' rights. The Minister might be interested to know that this afternoon one of the 3,688 people who have been on the waiting list to get into the hospital for an operation has finally made it into the hospital. No, she has not made it into the hospital yet, because at 4.00 o'clock this afternoon she was still waiting for an ambulance, which they asked for and which was expected at 1.00 pm. So this woman, who has waited for months for surgery to relieve very severe pain that has been debilitating her, finally gets to the point where she can be admitted to the hospital. She finally gets a bed allocated to her and her surgeon finally gets a place on the operating schedule, and this Minister's ambulance cannot even pick her up and get her to the hospital so that she can go through the pre-op. We sure need a charter of patients' rights, all right, and we sure need a social justice budget.
I would like to see the Chief Minister put her money where her mouth is and deliver some of it, because it sure is not being delivered right now. I think the Government's performance on the ageing and in health is absolutely scandalous. We get more words: "We are going to examine; we are going to investigate; we are going to review". Some help! There are hundreds of thousands of people out there waiting for the Government to do something. A year from now there is an election day, and the Government will find out that people will be voting on these issues.
When the Chief Minister finished telling us that she was going to examine, investigate, strategise and review the ageing, as though she had actually done something, the very next statement was this:
The Government will also continue to improve services for young people.
The implication is that she has already fixed the old ones, so now we are going to get on with the young ones. The question is the same: What has she done? What has this Government done for youth?
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