Page 3660 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Connolly: I said immediately in question time, "We have done it at the best opportunity". I also said, "We have done it on the same basis as New South Wales".
MRS CARNELL: We will actually talk about that, too, Minister. The 20 neonatal nursery beds, we now find, had never been counted before. The 584 - that the Minister was trying to tell us on 20 September, and on a number of other occasions in the house, was the number - did not compare like with like; and the Minister knew that. It was 10 dialysis beds that we had never counted before; 20 neonatal cots that we had never counted before; and at least four paediatric beds that simply are not opened, Minister. That is being kind at the moment. The Minister might like to check that that unit is not full at the moment, because the rotavirus has finished. We are talking about beds that are actually staffed and available.
We have a situation where you can take at least 34 beds from the 584, which, fascinatingly, takes us down to 550 beds - if the Minister had been even slightly interested in comparing like with like. Did he come back and explain that to us, until this week when we asked the question? Certainly, he did not. He did not explain to us that the 24 beds he had promised by 1 July had not been opened; in fact, as it turns out now, virtually none of them have been opened. He did not explain to us that he had added to this figure a number of beds that had never been included and, on that basis, had not given the Assembly all the information. The other thing that is very interesting, that he had not explained to the Assembly, is that 80 of those beds are actually chairs or recliners that you cannot stay overnight in. That has always been the case. There have always been some of those. But the fact is that 80 of the 562 beds are actually not beds that there is a capacity to actually lie down in and stay overnight in. That is a fairly interesting statistic in itself.
The Minister made the comment before, about nursing home beds, that they had been counted previously. Certainly, at one stage they were counted in the number of beds; they were actually counted separately, but they were counted. But, interestingly, if the Minister would like to go on with those actual statistics that he quoted - from 1991 - he would realise that it says, "We have included the renal dialysis beds at Woden", as he has rightly said, "and the nursing home beds at Calvary". It then goes on to exclude the special care nursery beds - the ones that the Minister has now included - the neonatal intensive care beds, and the day procedure beds in gastroenterology and in oncology; all of those beds that are now included. (Extension of time granted)
Madam Speaker, I do not think that is the issue in this situation, because we can certainly get into the statistics on what was or was not included in 1991. There is no doubt that what was and was not included has changed, but not between now and last year, on figures that we were comparing. If the Minister was going to change his basis of counting right now, then this Assembly had a right to know. Without those figures, without knowing that he had changed the goalposts - something that he and his senior advisers seem to have admitted most recently - then this Assembly simply cannot be properly informed. If you read back over what the Minister has said all the way through - ever since he took over the ministry - but certainly the statements that we quoted from June and from various times in September, the Minister has said time and time again,
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .