Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 5 Hansard (25 August) . . Page.. 1262 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Mr David Rhodes, who is the manager of the area of allied health within the hospital. He now answers to Community Care, to Mr Findlay, instead of answering through the hospital system to Mr Johnston. The rest of allied health is now going through the very process of consultation that you are talking about. In fact, at lunchtime today, Mr Stanhope, I was in the hospital auditorium, which seats about 200 people, and that auditorium was pretty close to full. I spent over an hour answering specific questions. Amongst the things I said was that we are beginning a consultation process. As far as they are concerned, there is a two-month starting period during which time there will be no change for these individuals, all these allied health workers, while they go through the - - -

Mr Stanhope: While they get used to the direction.

MR MOORE: The direction is set. The Government has taken a direction. And we meant it, Mr Stanhope. That is the difference between what happens here and how I will operate as a Minister. When I brought down this document, I meant what was in it and I meant to bring some change. I meant to change the focus. I am very pleased that that happens to coincide with the Labor Party philosophy. That does not surprise me, because the Labor Party philosophy no doubt draws from the same sources as I drew myself, from the World Health Organisation and from general public health policy. It is not surprising to me that there is a general agreement of view about where we are going.

In terms of the consultation, as I pointed out to people in the auditorium today, I could have gone in there and said, "Look, I have an empty piece of paper. I am not quite sure what we are doing but, hey, we want to have some change, so what about if we start a consultation process?". If I had done something like that, of course there would have been nothing. How do you start a process of consultation? We say, "We are going to have a two-month consultation period, the process is going to be consistent with `Setting the Agenda' and how you operate now is going to depend on the direction that I am taking you. The direction that I am taking you to is to have allied health as part of Community Care". That is the process that is going on. There are no set specific roles or models that we have for how allied health is going to operate. In fact, I was very proud listening to Mr Terry Findlay, one of my senior officers from Community Care, explaining that we do not actually perceive that there will be a single model; that there will be a series of integrated models that operate next to each other and suit the particular situation and, more importantly, suit the patient. That is what this is all about. It is about making sure that we suit the patient.

That leads us to the other issue that Mr Stanhope raised about a strike at the hospital happening at the same time as I was launching this document. It does highlight that this document is going to put some strain on professional groups, whether it be nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, occupational therapists or whoever. The reason it will put some strain on them is that it shifts the focus. It says that health is no longer about the focus of those professional groups. It is no longer focused on those professional groups and the needs of those professional groups. It is about focusing our health care system where it belongs, on the patient. That is what is different from what Mr Berry offered when he was Health Minister.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .