Page 937 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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There is no question that as we move down that path of more salaried specialists and professionals within our system it will become better; but there will be some difficulties out there in the private sector because some of the work that they now enjoy within the public system will move into the public sector.
I trust that we will be able to do that with the help of those people out there in the medical profession who are interested in the development of our clinical school. I hope that they will join with the Labor Government, which is, of course, committed to the public system. I hope that they will join with us with a view to making sure that the system works better; that the clinical school becomes an accredited place in the scheme of things across Australia and remains that way. I trust that it also ends up with the support of those people in the private sector.
There will be a transition and it will mean that some of the people who now have influence will not have as much influence in the future, but I know that forward-thinking medical professionals out there want to see something happen in the future in the ACT. They can see that if we continue along the path that we are now on there is no real future. I think the community needs to recognise the importance of the clinical medical school. I do not think they do at this point, and I would urge my colleague Mr Connolly to continue to wave this flag of the clinical medical school. Once the community sees more of it, I think they will grow to understand the great significance of it as far as the future of our health system is concerned.
People who need to use the system at any given time are not worried about whether this is called a clinical medical school or some other fancy title that goes with a health system. All they want is a proper standard of care. I know that as time passes, with this clinical school, they can be guaranteed that the standard of care will improve. That is not to criticise anybody who is now working within the system. It is merely to say that a new and better public health system is evolving. The reason why it is evolving is that a Labor Government has decided to take the big step, and it was a big step.
Mr Humphries: You did not want to do it. You were dragged, kicking and screaming.
MR BERRY: It was a big step because we had to think about the costs involved, and they have been thought about. Mr Humphries is fidgeting around on his chair. For all of the period of the Alliance Government that he sat in the Minister's chair he did not have the courage to do it.
Mrs Carnell: You said that you were not going to give those rotten doctors one thing.
MR BERRY: He did not have the courage to do it. So who did it? What galls them most is that it was the Labor Party that did it. We promised the electorate that we would do it. This is just another promise that we have delivered, to join all those other wonderful promises that are now being enjoyed by the community here in the Australian Capital Territory.
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