Page 1632 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 18 May 1994
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HOSPITAL BEDS - JOHN JAMES HOSPITAL
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (11.02): Madam Speaker, I move:
That this Assembly welcomes the back-flip by the Government in approving the opening of new private hospital beds at John James Hospital and welcomes the signal that the Government will now pay more attention to the private health sector.
Madam Speaker, I would like to start by congratulating the new Minister for Health, Terry Connolly, on producing the backflip that this Government seems to have taken in opening some new private hospital beds at John James Hospital. We as an Opposition very warmly congratulate the Minister on this approach.
I think it is very appropriate that finally in this house we may be able to have a sensible debate on the contribution that the private sector makes to the health system in Australia and the importance of the part that the private sector can play in the ACT - a growing importance as time goes on, particularly under this new Minister. It is interesting that the image of many people, even in 1994 - we have certainly seen it from Mr Berry - is that the private hospital industry in Australia treats the cheap and profitable cases, is fairly inefficient and is very overpriced. That is the sort of thing we have heard from Mr Berry on many occasions. The fact is that the private hospital industry in 1994 is no longer a cottage industry providing services for the wealthy well. Private hospitals provide a comprehensive range of services comparable - and it was interesting to me to find just how comparable - with those in the public sector. Of course, it is very good to be able to have a debate about just how vital the contribution of the private sector is to the Australian health system.
The private hospital sector in Australia has some 320 private hospitals with 20,745 beds. In 1991-92, they treated 1.267 million patients and had an occupancy rate of just over 64 per cent. In 1991-92 this activity represented over 30 per cent of all admissions to both public and private hospitals in the whole of Australia. The interesting thing is that even with Mr Connolly's extra 50 private hospital beds the ACT still has by far the fewest private hospital beds per head of population in Australia, with the possible exception of the Northern Territory, although it would appear from recent statistics that the Northern Territory has more than we do. This is interesting, taking into account that the ACT also has the highest level of private health insurance in Australia. There seems to be a certain inequity here, something that I am sure we can address.
Comments that are continually made by the other side of the house suggest that private hospitals are really fairly grubby; that they are owned by nasty people who only want to make a quid and who really could not care much about the patients and so on. It is interesting to look at the actual figures. Ownership of private hospitals is divided into two main groups - the profit group and the not-for-profit group. The for-profit sector represents some 55 per cent of private hospitals and some 48 per cent of beds. Religious and charitable hospitals represent 25 per cent of hospitals and 40 per cent of beds, with other non-profit hospitals representing the remaining 20 per cent of hospitals and 12 per cent of beds.
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