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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 3308 ..
MR SMYTH (continuing):
I would like to read a quote to you which I think puts the issue in some perspective.
Then he quoted Mr Moore as follows:
Many people wrongly judge the performance of the public hospital system simply on its ability to deal with elective surgery as reflected by the emphasis on elective surgery waiting times. In reality the real measure of the success of a public hospital is its ability to deal with emergencies; those patients where treatment is urgent and important. On that measure the ACT has a high performing health and hospital system.
Mr Corbell said:
I couldn't agree more.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I point out, even though it is a little off the topic, that the emergency department performance that Mr Corbell uses as his defence is also lacking. According to his last quarterly report, four of the five categories did not meet their performance targets, including category 1, the most serious of all categories, which undershot its target by one per cent. One per cent might not sound like much, but in this category it is quite literally a matter of life and death and anything less than a 100 per cent result is bordering on ministerial negligence.
Not only is elective surgery in trouble, but also the minister's last bastion, the emergency department, is significantly underperforming. Not only are waiting lists unacceptably long, but also the waiting times are unacceptable. If we have a health system where category 1 patients are overdue on a regular basis, we have a serious problem, and that is happening regularly. In the 2002-03 financial year, there were overdue category 1 patients in eight of the 12 months that year. That is not a seasonal anomaly; it is a regular pattern. It is a pattern that cannot be allowed to continue.
We all know how the waiting lists have risen and risen and risen since the government came to office. For the benefit of my colleague Mrs Burke, who, as a new arrival, has not witnessed the whole sorry saga, I will go over it again. The last report delivered to this place by the previous Liberal government had the waiting list figures at 3,565 in August 2001. By April 2002, just a few months after Labor took office, they were at 3,814. By July 2002, they were at 3,921. By October, they were at 4,057. The year finished on 3,854. To celebrate the new minister, there was a huge jump for January to 4,145 and another huge jump to 4,330 at the end of April. Thanks to a $500,000 injection of funds, the waiting lists at the end of June were at 4,274.
The minister trumpets the fact that he has increased funding by $2 million. Bully for you, Mr Corbell! The sad fact is that the extra money will barely make up for the cut in funding Calvary received last financial year, a cut that was somehow the previous government's fault, even though the Chief Minister, in taking the decision as the former Health Minister, said that he knew that there would be pain. That was also about $1.5 million short of what Calvary needed to operate at the level it did under the Liberal government. Indeed, there will still be elective surgery closures at Calvary this year for between four and eight weeks.
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