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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2286 ..

MR STANHOPE: I am suggesting to you that I had overlooked that convention and I beg your pardon. (Further extension of time granted.) The 2000-2001 budget has also failed to deliver much needed public convalescent facilities for older people in the ACT community. The Older Women's Network has recently highlighted the ongoing need for convalescent facilities in Canberra. According to the network, there is a significant gap in current service delivery that can only be filled by the provision of additional convalescent facilities and a slow-stream rehabilitation facility. Neither additional convalescent facilities nor a slow-stream rehabilitation facility have been funded in this budget. Older people in our community are another group that has been forgotten despite the supposedly inclusive draft budget process.

The ACT dental program has suffered significantly under this government. During recent budget estimates hearings the committee was informed that there is currently a wait of 120 weeks for restorative dental treatment and 62 weeks for accessing dentures. The report of the Select Committee on Estimates notes that without additional staff it seems unlikely that any significant reductions in waiting times will be achieved. So, 120 weeks for restorative dental treatment and 62 weeks for accessing dentures. What is that? A bit over a year without your false teeth.

The report also notes that the committee is of the view that the dental program is in desperate need of additional funding for extra staff to decrease waiting times and open up access to this important community service. The committee has recommended that the government allocate additional funds to the dental program in an effort to drastically reduce the waiting times experienced by people requiring dental treatment. The fact that this government thinks it is acceptable that people wait 120 weeks for dental treatment is quite revealing in terms of assessing their commitment to ensuring the accessibility of health services for Canberrans. To some extent, if one can suggest, without appearing ageist, that it is probably the older members of our community who are in need of dentures, that is another area of significant discrimination against the older people within the community, and I apologise to any older person still with their teeth who might be slighted by that suggestion.

The ACT government's commitment to public health is highly questionable, as demonstrated by the delays in finalising claims under the hepatitis C financial assistance scheme. This initiative was designed to help those Canberrans who were infected with hepatitis C by a blood transfusion before the latest blood screening techniques were brought into use. This is an issue which I have been pursuing, but I will not go into the details now.

I remain most concerned that it was discovered in late 1994 by health officials around Australia, including health officials who serve this community, that there was a very reasonable chance that Canberrans, amongst other people around the nation, had been infected with the hepatitis C virus through blood transfusions, and we did not do a thing to trace those people until late 1998. We waited four years without lifting a finger to identify who amongst our citizens may have been infected, through our blood transfusion service, with hepatitis C.

We now discover that a number of people were so infected. We now discover that a number of people who were infected are now dead. We will never know whether or not the fact that those people were infected with hepatitis C had anything to do with their

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