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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4148 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

totally that the private hospital system has a continuing role in the provision of health care in the community, but my major concern has always been for the public system. There will be an effect on the public system with the establishment of this hospital.

The lead-in to the Government's submission to the inquiry claimed that the commitment to the development of the private hospital was announced in the policy platform prior to the 1995 election. That is untrue. The committee was unable to find any reference to a new private hospital in the official policy documents; nor was anybody able to provide the committee with any documents indicating that this was official Liberal policy. This is an out-the-back policy that they wheel out when it suits them, you might think. This matter was further discussed with the chief executive officer of the Department of Health and Community Care, who said:

I was certainly informed by my Minister -

referring to the Health Minister -

it was a policy of hers prior to the last election ...

So, it was a policy she kept under wraps somewhere, not announcing it until it suited her. It was sprung on those private hospitals - private hospitals which may have supported the Liberals in the lead-up to the last election - at a point where they could do nothing about it, because the decision had indeed been made. The major criticism of the Government's action in this matter is that it did not consult with the hospitals that might be affected.

The Government also claimed that this hospital will fill a niche market. In the committee's view, that is another misleading statement. The committee found that it was clear from the number of non-cardio and non-intensive care beds at the National Capital Private Hospital that the new private hospital will be attempting to attract business across a wide range of public and private services. This will be assisted by medical specialists with clinical practices in both TCH and the new private hospital. So, the niche is anybody's backyard. That is not to be too critical of Health Care of Australia. They have seen a business opportunity and they have leapt at it. They have been given an unfair advantage, a very unfair advantage, over other businesses in the ACT. You cannot blame them for that. The Government made the wrong decision. If they had not jumped at it, somebody else would have. It was a Government decision that got in the road of this whole process. It seems to me that Health Care of Australia manages a quality system.

The committee also questioned the view put by Health Care of Australia - and this was a major point made by Health Care of Australia - that a major source of its patients will be those privately-insured patients who do not declare themselves in the public system or use the public system. We were told that there was evidence that this had occurred elsewhere. Indeed, none was provided to the committee, and we pursued that. We have taken the view, therefore, that this claim was questionable and that significant numbers of patients would now declare themselves as private patients in a public hospital, that they might change their longstanding habit of going to the more expensive hospital. You can understand why.

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