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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2302 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

I apologise for that and I correct that. We have spent the original $8.2 million which was provided to the department of health in late June 1998, due to the process required by the Financial Management Act. The second $8.2 million from the Commonwealth was received by the ACT early in the 1998-99 financial year and came through under the Financial Management Act to the department in June 1999.

Mr Speaker, this is one-off money, so it is not as easy to spend as some people may think. Because it is one-off money it is restricted to improving the waiting list circumstances. If I say, "Open another theatre, employ more nurses and do more operations," what happens when that one-off money is exhausted? What do we do? Do we close the theatre and fire the nurses? We do not have the ability to do that under the Financial Management Act. We are looking at ways to try to improve that. As you know, the theatre utilisation review is on and we are trying to do it.

It has never been a case that the Canberra Hospital is in crisis. It is not in crisis. It has never been in crisis. That is simply false. We know that some people in this place and outside this place like to keep making assertions that are patently false to try to convince people that there is a major problem with management. That is simply not true. The quality performance indicators make it clear that it is not in crisis, Mr Speaker. Yes, there was a short period, about three or four weeks ago, of great stress for the hospital. That is not unusual. That is not unusual for every hospital in Australia. However, that does make things difficult, particularly for the staff who are working there.

Mr Osborne also raised the issue of the nurses who are working there. Had he been here just after lunch when I was tabling the papers, and if he was here now, I would be able to explain to him the percentages of nurses who did an extra shift. In that month less than 1 per cent of all shifts were done as double shifts, and a fair proportion of those, about half the ones that were double shifts, were done in the intensive care unit. This is the intensive care unit that performs 10 times better than the Australian average, more than 10 times better than the Australian average actually. So, Mr Speaker, the hospital management is doing an extraordinarily good job; it is not in crisis.

Mr Rugendyke, there is $800,000 for a supervised injection room, but the line of the budget that we are debating is for $380 million. When you vote against that line in the budget a lot of other things go down too. All the operations, respite care, paying nurses and paying doctors. There is a huge range of things that are important to the community. We are improving on things all the time. We will continue to manage the health portfolio to get constant improvement. I am still keen to listen, as I have done, to your ideas on how I can improve that. I am always keen for any members of this Assembly to make suggestions on where I can improve focus, and I do it where it is possible.

MS TUCKER (8.00): Mr Speaker, I have come to the conclusion that the health budget is flawed, as are all other aspects of this budget, for the reasons I have already outlined. The budget should be, in proper governance terms, a means to an end. The accountancy frame should be useful only to the extent that it provides a partial analysis of the resources available to the community and the proposed means of using them to meet identified need. We have not seen the need identified. We are told by the minister in

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