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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (2 July) . . Page.. 2184 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

constantly assess because of our obligations under those reports. It is interesting in relation to Winnunga Nimmityjah that they did not receive the mental health funding from the Bringing them home report that they deserved. The ACT did miss out.

We have had a couple of questions today in relation to the hospice. I think it is relevant that we raise here the fact that we are losing the hospice on Acton Peninsula. I think there are an awful lot of people in this community who are most concerned about that. There are a lot of people in this community, including me, who are concerned that the Government waited until the very last minute before managing to come to some so-called accommodation with the Commonwealth in relation to the Acton Peninsula. I have been urging for over a year that the Minister and others take this issue seriously so that we were not left at the last minute with a situation in which we would have to endure on Acton Peninsula during the period that it was a construction site and then be asked to shove off. I think it is insulting to learn today that for the privilege of being allowed to remain in the middle of a construction site we are likely to pay $38,200. I think that is an appalling result for the people of Canberra.

It is also worrying that there is nothing in the capital works program or the budget to allow for the development of a new hospice. We have been very poorly served by this arrangement, and it is an arrangement that would have been avoided if this Government had not insisted on including the hospice and its site in the land swap. It should not have happened, it need not have happened, and it is a great shame for us that it did happen.

There are a couple of other issues that concern me and that I would like to raise. They are issues that go to the hospital budget blow-out and the rectification plan that has been developed in relation to that. I will be interested in the monitoring process that will be applied to the impact on services of the incremental implementation of the rectification plan. There are issues in the rectification plan that are very significant and will require, if they are to be implemented - I am not sure they all will be - some very sensitive implementation and very close analysis.

In the rectification plan, for instance, I notice that savings are predicted through the introduction of a cook-chill facility at the hospital. It is noted in the rectification plan that it would require $800,000 to upgrade the kitchens at the Canberra Hospital. One does wonder what liaison there was between the separate ACT departments in relation to the development of the kitchens at Bruce when we see that particular issue in the hospital's rectification plan.

I am particularly concerned too at the difficulties that are being suffered at the Canberra Hospital in relation to imaging. Imaging really is half staffed and faces grave difficulties in servicing the needs of clients that need the imaging service at the Canberra Hospital. In view of the prospect of those services being outsourced, I hope that that service is not being run down with a view to it being sold off.

There are also similar concerns about the non-replacement of staff in the oncology ward at the Canberra Hospital. I wonder whether the Minister today, or at some other stage, might be able to give us some advice on whether or not he is maintaining appropriate levels of servicing in the oncology ward at the Canberra Hospital. I have had calls to

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