Page 3009 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 September 1994
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MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, I do not have a policy about discharging people from hospital; that is a clinical decision that is made by the doctor in charge of the case and the sister in charge of the ward. However, I do say this: Hospital is a place for intensive treatment, a place where people who are very sick go for intensive treatment. It is not, generally speaking, a place where people stay for extended periods of time unless they clinically need to be there. Sometimes people do have concerns about that decision if the clinical decision is, "You do not need to be here". But that is the reality.
Again, Madam Speaker, I would like to show Mr Cornwell - and I am happy to send him the files - lots of press clippings from Melbourne. Particularly in Melbourne, Mrs Kaine is a hero. They refer to the casemix strategy that is going to save $26m and how that is going - - -
Mr Humphries: Mrs Kaine?
MR CONNOLLY: Mrs Carnell's strategy. They are peas in a pod, really. In Victoria, where this blind adherence to casemix has been followed, you read virtually every second day in the Age or the Herald Sun not of cases where people are dissatisfied because they had early discharge but of cases where people are being shunted from hospital to hospital, where people are dying while they are being shunted from hospital to hospital. Madam Speaker, heaven forbid that we ever get to that in the ACT; but, if Mrs Carnell rips $31m out of the health system, I could not guarantee that we would not collapse in that way.
Health Services
MS SZUTY: My question without notice is also to the Minister for Health, Mr Connolly. It is a general question, Minister, so you might be able to answer this a little more easily than the specific questions. I am aware that the Minister has stated both publicly and in this Assembly that his department is trying to encourage people who present with non-critical conditions at the Emergency Department at Woden Valley Hospital to seek help from alternative medical services. My question to the Minister is: Can he inform the Assembly what range of strategies he intends to adopt, and over what timeframe, to inform the Canberra community about what options they have available to them in seeking appropriate treatment for non-critical conditions?
MR CONNOLLY: I thank Ms Szuty for a sensible question on policy, rather than a stunt. I do want to stress to the people of Canberra that the Emergency Department is indeed for accidents and emergencies. I received a letter only this week from a citizen who was very annoyed that they had to wait eight hours for treatment at Woden Valley. I read on with increasing concern that they had to wait for over eight hours. What were they waiting for? They were waiting for a pregnancy test. Madam Speaker, the Emergency Department at Woden Valley Hospital is not there to provide that type of service.
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