Page 3110 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 September 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Woden Valley Hospital - Bed Numbers
MR STEFANIAK: My question is directed to the Minister for Health. Mr Connolly, in October 1993 Woden Valley Hospital had approximately 610 operational beds and there were about 3,418 waiting for elective surgery. I know that you were not Minister then. I think the person you referred to in a letter to my colleague Mrs Carnell today as Wayne Merry was in fact the Minister then. However, today there are well under 600 beds and there are now 4,416 - or an extra 1,000 - people on the waiting list. The week before last you stated that your target was to have only 600 operational beds, 10 fewer than last year. Given that both Woden and Calvary are operating at close to 100 per cent occupancy, how is the Minister planning to address the problem of waiting lists that have increased by almost 170 per cent since his Government came to office in 1991?
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, probably in much the same way as State governments around Australia are seeking to deal with the issue of waiting lists and hospital bed numbers. Increasingly, day surgery techniques are being used. The average length of stay in hospital is in Canberra, as everywhere, declining and declining quite rapidly. The turnover of patients in Woden is high and, in fact, is higher this year than last year. For example, in July 1993 there were some 3,479 in-patient admissions. In July of this year there were some 3,636 in-patient admissions. That figure is significant, because the Opposition likes to carp on the waiting list and say that it is still 4,000, to give the impression - which is a very easy impression to create in the media - that there are 4,000 people out there who are waiting and still waiting; and nothing is happening. In reality, if we could wave Mrs Carnell's magic wand and say, "Nobody gets sick", we would clear the waiting list in a bit over a month. Our throughput is about 3,600 at Woden alone.
We have, in effect, a zero waiting list for emergency cases, for urgent surgery. If you get very sick very suddenly, if you are hit by a car, if you are involved in a motor vehicle accident, or if you have a heart attack, you will go into hospital straightaway. Something like 43 per cent of those 3,600 are what we regard as emergency admissions - people who come through the doors of the Emergency Department, go straight in and go straight into the hospital. We have not seen in Canberra the sort of thing that has been seen in Sydney and Melbourne - and gets wide publicity - where people who are seriously traumatised, in motor vehicle accidents, or, in a recent Sydney case I saw some publicity given to, after a fairly serious criminal assault, taken by ambulance to an emergency department and told, "Go away, go away", and ferried across town looking for an emergency department that can admit them. If you are seriously, critically ill in an emergency situation you will get in.
We are putting people through the hospital at the rate of some 3,600 a month - more than last year - so while you say, "Things have got worse since last year", in fact, we are putting people through the hospital at a more rapid pace. We are bringing down the average length of stay as - - -
Mrs Carnell: The average length of stay has got longer.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .