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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3530 ..

was left with that problem, is now attempting to fix it. Let me give members some facts to prove that. Labor provided more public elective surgery procedures in 2003-04 than has been provided in any other year on record. This government set a target of an additional 600 elective surgery operations and provided more than 900 operations.

Elective surgery initiatives announced over the last two budgets will provide almost $20 million in additional elective procedures over the next four years. That is almost 4,000 additional operations than would have been provided by the former Liberal government. I am not saying that all the problems have been fixed. There are still too many people waiting for elective surgery.

Mr Smyth: Well, that’s normal.

MR WOOD: Does Mr Smyth want me to refer to all of the many headlines that I have? The ACT community can have faith in the fact that the ACT Labor government is working hard to fix these problems. This government is now moving to improve the situation of those who have less serious needs. The government, by providing additional resources, is not simply throwing money at the problem; it is targeting specialities and it is targeting those patients who have been waiting the longest times. We are now starting to see results. The number of patients who have waited for a long time is starting to fall. Members should not just look at the number of people who are on the waiting lists; they should look at the number of people who have waited for a long time.

I refer, next, to the emergency departments at our hospitals. The increase in the number of long wait emergency department admissions is a problem and a matter of concern to the government. I have ascertained from newspaper headlines that it was a disastrous problem in the time of the former government. Another issue that is of concern to the government is the level of access block, that is, the time that it takes a patient to get out of the emergency department and into a bed in a ward. All patients who are classified as triage category one patients, that is, patients in need of resuscitation, obviously receive attention immediately.

The increase in waiting times for other categories is due to the considerable increase in demand in 2003-04 for more urgent emergency department attention. The ACT still ranks as the best in Australia in meeting emergency department waiting times. National data for 2002-03, the only data that is currently available, shows that the ACT tied with Victoria as having the lowest emergency department waiting times in the nation. The number of people who are arriving at our emergency departments and who are classified as category two patients almost doubled over 2003-04. Our hospitals operate a load-sharing system when necessary and our ambulances work with their New South Wales counterparts during busy periods.

I have established that Mr Smyth’s statistics are exaggerated and out of proportion. No-one with a life-threatening condition has ever been kept waiting because a hospital system has gone on bypass. Load sharing is a normal operation for emergency departments. Sometimes those departments get more attendances than they can cope with and it makes sense that, in those times, people are diverted to services where they can be more adequately cared for. Load sharing does not mean that people with life-threatening conditions are turned away or receive less timely or effective care. Too many people are still waiting too long in emergency departments before getting access to a bed in a ward.

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