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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2231 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

doctors will get more for performing this additional surgery in private hospitals than they would in the public system?

MR MOORE: Mr Stanhope, there are a couple of problems with the premise upon which you based your question. The first is that the original $8 million has been made available and we have spent that money. The $8 million that we are currently putting out for tender has come to us recently and we are beginning the process of spending that money.

The tender process does mean that there will be another $5 million; that part is correct. There will be another $5 million for us to spend and we will seek to spend it in two ways, as I have sought always to spend the CUT money-that is, the critical/urgent treatment money-that we are talking about. That is, on the one hand, to directly spend money on having surgery done, as is the case with this tender, and, on the other, on trying to make sure that we have change built into our system so that our waiting times are set up in a sustainable way, by which I mean that people can have their treatment within the times that the specialists say are appropriate; in other words, category 1 patients are done within their timeframes, category 2 within their timeframes and category 3 within their timeframes. Indeed, contrary to what was happening under Labor, we have a situation where our waiting lists are coming down and we are building in constant improvement.

With regard specifically to your question on the tenders, the tenders were done at arms length from me. We take the pragmatic approach that, if we can have operations done, we should have them done. Calvary Hospital was prepared for that and showed they could spend the money if they had the money. They have been allocated a bit over $2 million. There are some private hospitals-namely, the Lidia Perin Memorial Hospital and the Canberra Eye Hospital-which are prepared to do some of the operations.

Mr Stanhope, if you were waiting for an operation on your eyes to have them fixed, would you be worried about where that operation is done, provided the hospital is fully accredited and the operation is to be done by specialists who are qualified to do the task? I think not.

Mr Berry: Yes, I am.

MR MOORE: Mr Berry indicates that he is worried by that. I have to say, Mr Berry, that people in your circumstances will still have that operation done in the public hospital if that is where they want it to be done. If they want it to be done more quickly than that, then they would have this other option. We have been able to have another 800 operations done through this tendering process. I think that, in itself, is a very important step forward. There is more money.

I would hope that, after the theatre utilisation review has taken place, the Canberra Hospital will be able to come back to us and say, "We have now put into place the things that Dr King, Dr Kerridge and Ms Cohen have recommended and we can now handle more operations. Can we have more funds to do those operations for people on the waiting list?" to which I will say, "Certainly."

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