Page 2728 - Week 09 - Thursday, 25 August 1994
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One of the things that this Assembly had already suggested with regard to the adolescent ward was that it needed to be planned into the hospital redevelopment program - a program that finishes at the end of next year, or in that vicinity anyway. To have it not planned in, and seeing nothing in this response to indicate that it is going to be planned in before the end of the hospital redevelopment program, I believe is simply unacceptable. In view of previous decisions of this Assembly, I would suggest that the whole Assembly would consider it unacceptable. We wanted to know where the increases in health expenditure actually were.
Mr Berry: Before the cardio-thoracic unit or at the same time? We might contract them both out to New South Wales.
MRS CARNELL: We could go onto contracting out if you like. When it comes to the Health Promotion Fund, I expect that we could almost put our recommendation into next year's Estimates Committee report - well, hopefully not, because, if the public see the light, we will have made it 5 per cent of the revenue by then. To say, as appeared in the Government's response, that the Estimates Committee's suggestion of 5 per cent is somehow unacceptable because, you never know, smoking might decrease because of Government strategies and then the Health Promotion Fund might get less, is one of the most convoluted arguments I have ever heard. We know that the amount of money that is being collected from the tobacco franchise has almost doubled in the last three years, from $16m in 1991-92 to $30m in the financial year just finished. I will tell you what; it would have to decrease an awful lot to get under $30m.
Mr Connolly: How much? That is funny, because your committee says $23.9m.
MRS CARNELL: It was $23m the financial year before. The information that has come out only in the last two weeks shows that $30.8m was collected in the financial year that just finished. That is a $5m windfall to the Government, Mr Connolly - a $5m windfall that your Government is unwilling to put back into health promotion to attempt to get better health in the ACT. What we need to achieve those ends of less tobacco consumption and better health is better health promotion funding. That is what is being done - - -
Mr Berry: But you have to have some money to look after the sick and injured as well.
MRS CARNELL: First of all, Mr Berry, you know perfectly well that the only way we are going to do anything about escalating health costs in this country is by getting back to basics, by getting better health statuses originally, right from the beginning. If we spend all our money on critical care, both of you know perfectly well that that is a problem. It is unfortunate that every year the Estimates Committee comes forward with this recommendation. It is a recommendation that has been picked up in a number of other States that have realised that unless you spend money on health promotion you simply do not do anything about the escalating costs of critical care.
We also see a very glib response to the committee's recommendation on waiting lists. Apparently, as usual, ACT Health simply cannot give us that information, although there is a committee that might be able to do it down the track somewhere. The response on the nursing home beds at Calvary was somewhat more encouraging; but only, of course, if
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