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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4962 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

not consult with them either. Although $6m or $7m was invested in practices at Calvary, the Government was secretly making decisions about a new hospital for the ACT. There was not a breath of discussion with Calvary in the lead-up to the decision. The decision was made behind closed doors and then the Government decided to go on with it.

I have said in the past that there is no need for additional private beds in the ACT. Mrs Carnell relies on statistics which show that the ACT is in need of them because we have fewer private beds per head of population. I think a lot of people in other States would argue that they have far too many and that the private sector dominates the delivery of health services too much. We know about the commitment of this Government to the private sector and how they will do anything to privatise any aspect of government service. That is part of the Liberals' philosophy. We are about quality public services for all and in particular for those who cannot afford access to the private sector.

Let us have a look at the sorts of services that the private hospital will provide. I want to make it clear from the outset that I do not question the quality of the services that are going to be provided at the new private hospital. That is not an issue in question. For example, heart bypass surgery will cost about $10,000 in the private hospital. Mrs Carnell and others will say, "Only if you are privately insured". Do you think private hospital insurance comes for nothing? No. Of course it costs. It will cost $10,000. Whether that comes by way of a cash payment or by way of insurance, it is high-cost medical technology which could be available to the community through that hospital. It would cost not $1 for a public patient in the public system.

Mrs Carnell goes crook about patients using the public system. She calls it "subsidising them". What difference will the new private hospital make to that? Probably none; if any, very slight, according to the evidence that the committee - Mr Hird and I - took in Sydney. They do not get much business out of the public hospital, Mrs Carnell. We received evidence to the effect that they expect to get plenty. That is not so. The fact of the matter is that the business is going to come from the existing private hospitals. In fact, any job that is created there will create shortages of qualified people in the other hospitals or will take jobs and services from those hospitals; so it will be at the expense of the other private hospitals, for the most part. Mrs Carnell does not seem to care about local businesses, but that is an important factor which was considered, and seen, by the committee.

The other aspect of patients going to the private hospital is coercion. It may well be in the interests of doctors to coerce patients to go to the private hospital, because there is more in it for them in a business sense if they do so. The closer the hospital is to the public system and the more cross-relationship there is, the more likelihood there is of that. What also concerns me is the likelihood that public services will be wound back in an effort to force people into the private sector and therefore save money in the public sector. I think this Government's philosophy would guarantee that that would happen.

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