Page 1633 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 18 May 1994
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A common opinion is that the for-profit hospitals are owned by doctors - something that Mr Berry has said on many occasions - health funds or, possibly, foreign companies. The fact is that the vast majority of - - -
Mr De Domenico: He is not bright, is he?
MRS CARNELL: No, he is not, as usual. The fact is that the vast majority of the for-profit private hospitals and beds are owned by Australian companies, only one group having any foreign ownership. Health funds own less than 10 per cent of hospitals; and doctors, interestingly, virtually none. That rather undermines the view that there is some hopeless conspiracy of doctors owning these hospitals that - - -
Mr Berry: Who owns John James?
MRS CARNELL: John James is not a for-profit hospital, Mr Berry, in case you did not realise it.
Mr Berry: Who owns it?
MRS CARNELL: We are talking about the for-profit sector here.
Mr Berry: Who owns it?
MRS CARNELL: What you are talking about I do not know. It is very interesting to look at just what we are talking about when we look at the private hospital sector in Australia. The other thing that is really interesting to look at is the treatment that is provided by private hospitals in Australia. Again, the view that is often put in this house, certainly by Mr Berry, is that really they do not do much; that they are only really small operations that you can get people into and out of quickly and make a lot of money from.
The fact is that the range of conditions being treated by private hospitals has been increasing in complexity and now is actually comparable with that of the public sector. Private hospitals can no longer be said to treat the least complicated minor ailments. In fact, analysis of the results of the national cost weights study - not exactly an insignificant study - conducted as part of the casemix development program, indicates that the overall complexity of patients treated in both public and private hospitals is exactly the same.
It is interesting to look at the most commonly performed procedures in private hospitals. They are removal and investigation of cancers, hip and knee replacements, cataract lens replacement, coronary artery bypasses - and I would like to talk about that a little bit later - gynaecological procedures, and births. Apart from births, the first five are actually the conditions that are most commonly seen on waiting lists. Of the 4,400 people waiting for surgery in the ACT, the vast majority are waiting for things such as hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery - of course, we send our coronary artery bypass cases to Sydney - and gynaecological procedures. The private hospital sector in Australia is performing these services. In fact, these are the most commonly performed procedures in private hospitals, and they are the things that people in the ACT are waiting for.
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