Page 1174 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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It fairly prominently featured the name of the cigarette company, and the cigarette company then put out a press release, saying, "Shock, horror! Because the nasty Government prevents us from advertising the brands of cigarettes, we have been prevented from placing our ad calling on a dangerous product to be withdrawn". In fact, they were quite incorrect, because on the date they put that press release out their ad appeared, certainly in the Canberra Times, telling people to return the Peter Jackson 30s cigarette lighter.
I welcome companies that issue product safety notices and recall dangerous products. I welcome the recall by Philip Morris of a dangerous cigarette lighter. I would welcome it even more - and my colleague Mr Berry would join me in this - if they recalled the dangerous cigarettes with the dangerous cigarette lighters.
Nursing Home Care - Young Disabled
MS SZUTY: My question without notice is addressed to the Minister for Health, Mr Connolly. It concerns the provision of nursing home care in the ACT for younger people with disabilities. As members will be aware, there are currently over 40 people under the age of 65 years being accommodated in nursing home facilities which have largely been designed to meet the needs of aged people. The former Minister for Health, Mr Berry, was quoted in the Canberra Times of 29 January of this year as saying that he would take a submission to Cabinet within weeks on the problem of providing suitable nursing home care for younger disabled people. My question of the Minister is: Can the Minister inform the Assembly of what action the Government intends to take to provide appropriate nursing home care for younger people with disabilities?
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, I am not able to inform the Assembly of any concrete proposals, other than to say that it is a problem that I am very conscious of, as I was in my former hat as Community Services Minister. I think the definition of a younger person in nursing homes as someone under 65 is somewhat artificial, because a 64-year-old early dementia sufferer has much more in common with the traditional nursing home patient than the 18-year-old motor traffic trauma victim has. So the numbers of people defined as young people in nursing homes tends to be skewed, because some of them have early onset dementia or other diseases of ageing and would probably be not uncomfortable in a nursing home environment. Some of them clearly are not and would be most uncomfortable. Equally, a 63-year-old with early onset dementia would probably not fit into any purpose built facility for young brain injured. It is an area that the Government is aware of, and Mr Lamont in his capacity now as Community Services Minister will also have an input. We have no simple solution yet, but we are conscious that it is a real problem.
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