Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .
Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (28 June) . . Page.. 2141 ..
MR MOORE
: I thank Mr Corbell for the question. The shortage of intensive care nurses is not only Australia-wide but also worldwide. When it originally came to my attention some 15 months ago, we began a series of actions. The first of those actions was to negotiate with the National Capital Private Hospital to run a backup for the Canberra Hospital so that, should our intensive care unit beds reach such a stage that we were not able to take anybody else, we could take people over to the National Capital Private Hospital.Remember, when we talk about beds we are normally talking about the number of nurses, not just the physical beds themselves. It is about the support of the nurses there to assist the people in those beds. It is correct to say that 18 beds were in operation on 9 June. That was the peak of the situation. We were down to eight yesterday, I was informed by the CEO at the hospital, Mr Ted Rayment. There was a period within the last few months when, as I recall, we were down to two or three beds at one stage.
The intensive care unit workload does go up and down, but on 9 June we had a particularly strong demand. I must say that we really appreciated the effort put in by nurses who voluntarily worked double shifts, working very hard, to support patients. Remember, those nurses, like the hospital staff and this government, are interested in providing number one patient care.
Mr Corbell also asked about what we will be doing in the long term about this issue. We are advertising for intensive care nurses in Australia. I have also asked the hospital to ensure when they are advertising for surgeons internationally that they also do the same for intensive care nurses. That would normally mean advertising in places such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand and South Africa, where we expect the training to be about the same. There were also offers to assist people with training in the intensive care speciality. I understand that more work is being done on that.
Mr Corbell, this is a difficult area, but there is a whole series of strategies under way. There is one other strategy that every hospital in Australia uses. I know that it was commonly used in Sydney at about the same time as we peaked. We are not quite sure what brought about the particular pressure at that time, but the same pressure existed in New South Wales. What happens in the hospitals in Sydney, for example, when they come under the same pressure is that they transfer people from Westmead to Liverpool, Liverpool to St Vincent's or wherever they can find the room. Hospitals stay in touch with each other to make sure that they can do the same thing. We are involved in exactly the same process.
It is not uncommon for us when we have such pressure on intensive care and we know that somebody who is having a particular operation will need to come into intensive care to take a person whom the clinicians say is able to be moved and move that person to New South Wales. That happens under extreme circumstances. We do everything we can to avoid that in the first place.
That is not to confuse a particular circumstance that was reported in a Sunday edition of the paper when Mr Bennett talked about his mother. Most of us are familiar with Mr Bennett. He is, in fact, a close neighbour of mine and I was familiar with that
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .