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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Wednesday, 23 June 2004) . . Page.. 2481 ..

in health and planning over your ears and eyes and simply fail to address the problems that have beset the area of health care for the 2½ years of your government.

MS MacDONALD (12.02): I will attempt to be brief. Yesterday, Mr Smyth introduced a matter of public importance in this place on the state of the ACT public hospital system. I quite clearly heard him say that he was concerned about the lack of throughput. Mr Hargreaves said before that Mr Smyth cannot have it both ways. I beg to differ with Mr Hargreaves on this because I think Mr Smyth thinks that he can have it both ways, which I believe is the problem here.

I have not visited RILU but I have no doubt that it provides an excellent service. I spoke to one gentleman a few years ago about the wonderful work that RILU does in re-acclimatising people after they had lost a leg, had a stroke or whatever and getting them back home. I met a gentleman who was in this situation, having just returned home from RILU. As I said, I have no doubt about the wonderful work that it does.

I think Mr Hargreaves hit the nail on the head when he said that we are talking about an interim regime. Regardless of whether patients are located in RILU or in Ward 12B, we need to keep in mind that the rehabilitation treatment philosophy is identical in both locations. Mr Smyth has raised the issue about having the setting similar to a home. I know there is that issue, but there is also the issue that other states, other locations, have a number of different options in which they utilise rehabilitation services. This can be long day stay, day admission to a facility or community based. It can also include home rehabilitation. All of these methods are commonly used and evaluated and shown to be effective. RILU might provide a wonderful service, but it is not irreplaceable. It can be replaced by other things that will adequately meet the needs of people who would have previously gone into the Rehabilitation and Independent Living Unit.

I find the scaremongering that has been going on in the last couple of weeks about the Rehabilitation and Independent Living Unit quite concerning. I believe there are people in the community who are giving the impression that RILU is going to close altogether, that there will be no rehabilitation services offered. I think it is irresponsible for the opposition and the Leader of the Opposition to put out the message that there will be no rehabilitation services, because people will get up in arms—and they have been getting up in arms. As a result, they have been writing to a number of us here because they are concerned.

The service can be provided in a variety of settings. I believe that the service to the community will not be diminished but will be enhanced and will address the need for transitional beds in the long run. In a period of 18 months we will have 40 rehabilitation beds in place. It will address the needs of our community, which, for whatever reason, have changed in the last few years. As a result, we have nursing home type patients taking up hospital beds. We are talking about 80-year-olds who have fractured their hips, broken their femur—or whatever—and who take considerably longer to heal but do not need acute care. They need not only the attention of surgeons and hospital staff immediately after the breakage—and they certainly need it at the beginning—but also some sort of facility to look after them in the meantime. They are taking up precious space and, as a result, we do not have the throughput going on.

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