Page 1636 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 18 May 1994
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Mr Connolly: That is not my advice from Health.
MRS CARNELL: The fact is that even with the extra 50 we are still lower than anywhere else, with the possible exception, as I said, of the Northern Territory - and I do not think we really want to compare our health system in that direction. Currently the next lowest is Tasmania, with 550 beds, Mr Connolly.
We have a capacity in the ACT to encourage the private sector to provide more services to the region and to the ACT, at no cost to people in Canberra, which would possibly encourage greater use of private health insurance in the ACT - something that we desperately need, looking at the fall-off in revenue at Woden Valley Hospital because of the falling off in private health insurance. It is a no-lose situation, as Mr Connolly rightly said when he announced the provision of an extra 50 private hospital beds all up. (Extension of time granted) He suggested that they would take the pressure off the waiting lists at Woden Valley Hospital; that they would take the pressure off the public hospital system generally. He even put a very interesting case for how it would actually save the public hospital system money, a case that I totally concur with. Therefore, if that argument is right in that circumstance, surely it is right in terms of a new private hospital for the ACT, possibly with a coronary bypass unit available to public patients as part of that operation.
My motion goes on to talk about the importance of the private health sector generally. One issue that certainly continues to bubble along concerns the problems of various health centres in the ACT having a fairly obvious imbalance in the number of doctors employed. We are all very well aware that there is only one full-time doctor at Tuggeranong. That is a situation that has obtained for a very long time. Looking through questions on notice back to 1992, I saw that Tuggeranong had only one full-time equivalent doctor at that stage as well. Now that situation has marginally improved by having somebody on a six-month contract.
The situation, though, is obvious. We have a very large building at Tuggeranong. We have a very definite need. If there is not a need, why in heaven's name do we keep the building operating as it is? There is obviously a need, as we can see from the very large private clinic that has opened within a couple of blocks of the health centre. If we support community health centres in the ACT - those on this side of the house do anyway - why in heaven's name are we not encouraging private doctors to set up in these centres, as at the Kippax centre? They pay rent; they pay a percentage of outgoings; and, of course, they bulkbill as part of their contractual arrangements. From the point of view of a patient, the difference is very difficult to see.
In answer to a question I asked last year, Mr Berry suggested that the doctors at the health centres were breaking even. In fact, he suggested that the doctors were producing an 18c surplus on every service. Unfortunately, he did not count in rent, receptionists, nurses, oncosts, cars or any of the other things that go with employing doctors in the health centres. It was a fairly short-sighted view. That is probably the nicest thing I could say about it.
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