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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (28 February) . . Page.. 433 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I would be very interested to see how you decide which medical practitioners you are going to bring into health centres. If you can show me that you are going to have some system where you get a commitment or an analysis of the philosophical approach of staff in those centres, then perhaps that commitment would be possible to believe. What we know is that there are different types of medical practitioners with different philosophical approaches, and there are practitioners in private practices who would come quite happily from anywhere in Australia to set up a profit practice in one of these health centres. People training medical practitioners are also very interested in the philosophical approach of the people entering a caring profession. It is an issue they have been looking at for quite a few years. The right of people to enter the medical profession and train to be doctors should be assessed on something other than their academic qualifications. This is not an issue to be scoffed at; this is something significant.

Mr De Domenico: If I am sick I would rather have a good doctor than a good philosopher, I have to tell you.

MS TUCKER: Mr De Domenico makes fun, once again, of a serious issue which is being given serious consideration by all the training hospitals and academics dealing with medical training. You are just showing your ignorance, I am afraid.

It would also be useful if Mrs Carnell showed a commitment to providing medical attention for all people by providing a list of doctors in the ACT who bulk-bill 100 per cent. That kind of initiative might give the people in the community who are concerned about their lack of ability to get attention when they need it some indication that you are actually going to do something in this area. There are a growing number of people, and we have said it over and over through this debate, who do not have the up-front money to pay for a medical practitioner to see them, particularly if they are on a low income and have a couple of children. As you probably know, children often get sick together in a family, so you are looking at $90 for some people, which is probably the amount of money they are spending on food. Believe it or not, that is what some people in this town live on for a week.

Omitting paragraphs (3) and (4) from the motion is obviously meant to totally emasculate the whole motion, and we could not possibly support that. We have a commitment to primary health care. We want to see preventative health care in place. We understand and agree with "ACT Health Goals and Targets", which makes it quite clear that the primary health care sector is the central function and main focus of the health system, the principal vehicle for the delivery of health care services. As a structure, it involves those health services that are generally the first point of call into the health system. People will not make that first point of call because they do not have the money. Last night, at the forum that has been held on young people and their health, it was made quite clear that young people do not go to the doctor soon enough, and that is why the health problems of youth are greater than they need to be. Young people are not all going to be able to go and see doctors. They are not all going to be on health care cards. They need encouragement, and so does everyone else in this community if we want to look at preventative health care.

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