Page 3665 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Again, much play was made of the fact that, they say, the throughputs were down in July-August this year, compared to July-August last year; that shows that the Minister is misleading when he says that Health is continually improving. If you look at the longer term, in 1992-93 and 1993-94 we are dramatically up over what we were in 1991, despite having about 100 fewer beds. The admissions in 1993-94 were at about the 50,000 mark; they were 47,000 in 1991. We are getting better. Those figures that Mrs Carnell tabled on Tuesday, amidst great drama, showed that in August we were a bit up over August of the previous year. I was alleged to have misled when I said that in August we were a bit better.
Mrs Carnell: No; you said June.
MR CONNOLLY: I seem to think that we were right there.
Mrs Carnell: You said that it was up in July.
MR CONNOLLY: In July we were a bit down. We are looking at two months' figures. Madam Speaker, Mrs Carnell says that we should compare like with like. I venture to say that it is probably darned near impossible to do so in relation to hospital bed numbers here or anywhere in Australia. As I have pointed out repeatedly - quoting not Labor people, whom you would no doubt mistrust, but Liberal Ministers - the name of the game - - -
Mr De Domenico: Only some.
MR CONNOLLY: I think every Liberal Health Minister in Australia says the same things, Mr De Domenico.
Mr De Domenico: No. We mistrust only some Labor Ministers, not all of them.
MR CONNOLLY: We do not count beds; we count patients. On those patient indicators, ACT Health is continuing to operate more efficiently and effectively, as it must, given - as I was referring to during question time - the ever-increasing cost pressures on health systems around Australia.
Some of the exercise in what you count as a bed and what you do not count as a bed, you may criticise; you may say that it is a bit of a game. It may sound a little absurd that we call a couch a bed; but we do, because it is a point from which we provide an occasion of service in the hospital. Throughout Australia, State health officials are trying to work out the best deal they can for their State or Territory under the Commonwealth Medicare funding arrangements. A lot of this debate is really driven by that Federal-State funding. You could say that a lot of that may be a silly game, and maybe it is, intellectually; but we are all trying to get the best deal we can for our State or Territory.
I note the remarks of the new Secretary to the Federal Department of Health reported in this morning's Canberra Times, in which he says, "This whole exercise is silly, and we should have a clearer split between State and Federal responsibilities. We should avoid this nonsense where the States are going to all sorts of lengths to try to classify what were once outpatient services, and thus the States' responsibility, as in-patient services and get better Commonwealth funding". Intellectually, I would say, "Yes, that is right; it would
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .