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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Thursday, 26 August 2004) . . Page.. 4372 ..

So health was split into competing agencies. And talk about efficiency! We hear Mr Smyth talk about efficiency. They split health into competing agencies, and each entity had its own corporate services unit, its own finance unit, its own human resources unit and its own information technology unit, often working at cross-purposes. Mr Smyth says that he is the advocate of efficiency. I have never heard of a more stupid and inefficient program or structure than to suggest that in the ACT, a small jurisdiction with two public hospitals, a community health system and a mental health service, it should be all purchaser/provider.

Cooperation between agencies declined. Decisions were sometimes made by agencies in isolation from the bigger picture and about how best to deploy services right across the territory. The tail wagged the dog, and accountability for the health system was conveniently separated from the minister responsible by using a board. The last health minister in the Liberal government was able to use the cover of purchaser/provider to walk away from his responsibilities to manage the system as a whole. I am proud to say that Labor has abolished that system and we now have a unified health sector in the ACT: everyone pulling in the same direction.

I would like now to address the key issues that I believe the government has worked on in its term in office. As I reported previously to the Assembly, the ACT community has access to a very good public hospital system. In 2003-04, our public hospitals provided over 70,000 inpatient episodes. That is the highest number on record. We managed an 11 per cent increase in the number of outpatient occasions of service; again, the highest number on record. We oversaw an increase of 22 per cent, or a quarter increase, in the most serious types of emergency department presentations.

What is causing that? What is causing more and more seriously ill people to present at our emergency departments, so many more that we have seen close to a 25 per cent increase? The reason must be that they cannot see their GP early; they cannot get access to a GP when they need one; they let themselves get sicker; and it is only when things get desperate that they start presenting to our emergency departments. That is a real cause for concern, and it shows the folly of policies driven at a federal government level to undermine the primacy of primary care and the important role it plays in the community.

In relation to elective surgery, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker: we provided almost 1,000 more elective surgery operations, an increase of 13 per cent on the previous year; and, yet again, the highest number of procedures in a year on record. We provided 17 per cent more radiation oncology outpatient occasions of service than in the previous year.

As we also reported previously, the facts are that this government has provided more elective surgery procedures in 2003-04 than in any other year on record. We set a target in the budget before last of an additional 600 elective surgery operations. So far we have provided more than an extra 900—900 more Canberrans than would have been able to get elective surgery before. Elective surgery initiatives announced over the last two ACT Labor budgets provide almost an additional $20 million for elective procedures over the next four years.

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