Page 3644 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994

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MR CONNOLLY: And I will table the document.

Mr Humphries: Do you believe that advice?

MR CONNOLLY: It is the advice that we also get from the chief executive of the hospital; so, yes, I have no reason to disbelieve the advice of a highly regarded senior public servant. But, if you want to come in here and do that, that is fine. He says:

To delete them from the count would substantially reduce the Territory's funding from the Commonwealth under the Medicare agreement.

That is very significant, as I said in the earlier answer to Mrs Carnell's questions. Mrs Carnell can say, "We would not count these things. We would say that they were not beds". Mr Kaine might like to explain to Mrs Carnell how public finances work. It would help if somebody did. She might then understand that promising everything, abolishing taxes and the money tree is just stuff and nonsense. I will continue quoting verbatim from Mr Fraser:

The reason they are reported separately in the Annual Report is that due to the longstay characteristics of these patients they would disproportionately distort the hospital's average length of stay indicators.

Madam Speaker, there is the precise answer from the department. I am told that they have always been included in the count of available bed numbers at the hospital, and I can do no more than pass on to members - - -

Mr De Domenico: Is the annual report wrong?

MR CONNOLLY: No, the annual report is not wrong. I explained:

As I said earlier in answer to Mrs Carnell's question, if you wanted to get into this point of what is a patient going in for treatment and expecting to come out very shortly, and what is a long-stay, in effect, nursing home-style patient, you would have to make a whole lot of value judgments across regional and rural Australia about patients occupying beds in wards who, in fact, have occupied those beds for months or years and are, in effect, nursing home-style patients. But those beds have always been funded - - -

Mr Humphries: But you have changed your criteria halfway through.

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