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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 2026 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

We have now moved to a situation where, obviously, Jindalee does not cost us any money, because it has been sold, and it is meeting, at this stage, 29 out of 31 standards. I would have thought that was a win for everyone - a reduction in costs to the ACT Government to zero and an improved outcome for the people who live there. I am amazed that those opposite believe that that is not a good outcome for the Government, the people of Canberra or the residents of Jindalee Nursing Home. I cannot, for the life of me, work out what they think would be a good outcome. I am sure that they actually do not have any idea at all of what they think would be a good outcome.

Mr Speaker, in this budget we have a situation where record numbers will be treated in our public hospitals this year, with both Canberra and Calvary hospitals to increase throughput. Patient throughput is expected to exceed 52,000 cost-weighted separations in 1997-98 - a growth of 2.6 per cent, Mr Speaker. We are going to have a doubling of the amount of money we have in the waiting list incentives pools, going from $1.5m in 1996-97 to $3m in 1997-98. That money we will use to have a particular focus on unacceptably long waiting lists in such areas as orthopaedics, urology, paediatrics, general surgery and gynaecology and some areas of day surgery as well.

Ms Reilly indicated - maybe Ms Tucker did as well - that she did not believe that we were doing enough to have a holistic approach or a community-based approach to health. I would just like to run through a couple of the initiatives that are in this budget to further the approach that we have already taken in that area. Incentives will be provided to enhance care in the community for hospital patients, with at least half a million dollars of waiting list incentives pools money to be spent on joint community-based early discharge programs from the Canberra Hospital and ACT Community Care. We also have a redirection of funding to the hospital in the home project, which will increase capacity from 400 to 600 patients. That has been a very successful program this year, Mr Speaker, and something that I think everybody is very proud of.

There will also be the establishment of a nursing convalescent unit at the Canberra Hospital, to have better coordination and quality of care as people move from critical care back to home-based care. We have an expansion of what has been a very successful community midwife program from 175 to 240 patients. Ms Tucker, I think, said that this was a very cost-effective program. We are certainly very pleased with the outcomes from a quality perspective; but the actual costs of it, certainly on my advice, are exactly the same as what it would cost for a hospital-based birth. But we are interested in giving people a choice; so, we think it is a worthwhile program to extend. There is also our commitment to the ACT coordinated care trial. I believe that, again, will be a very important project.

Some members have spoken about the situation in the mental health and disability areas - both areas that have achieved a significant improvement over the last 12 months. It was interesting for me to see, in a customer satisfaction focus group held recently in the disability area, that 82 per cent of participants reported that they were satisfied with the service they were receiving from the disability program's accommodation support service.

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