Page 530 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 16 February 2005
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Hospital was awarded full and unconditional accreditation for two years in September 2004. This result, two years full accreditation, is considered a good outcome for the Canberra Hospital, given the fact that the hospital was reporting against new mandatory criteria and operating in a new portfolio-wide corporate structure.
The Canberra Hospital achieved a rating of moderate achievement or better for 70 per cent of the 19 criteria, and 72 per cent overall. I want to emphasise that the report did not mention any areas of activity in the Canberra Hospital that required high-priority attention or that placed patients at risk. I think that bears repeating. There was nothing that required high-priority attention.
Mr Smyth: Table the report then.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, if you interject again, I’ll have no alternative but to warn you.
MS MacDONALD: As I was saying, Mr Speaker, there was no high-priority attention required or anything that placed patients at risk.
Let us, for a moment, look at some of the facts about the ACT’s health system. Only last month the report of government service provision was released. These are the facts:
(1) Canberrans are healthier and live longer than other Australians. In 2000-2002, the average life expectancy at birth was 79.2 years for men, when the national average was 77.4 years; and 83.3 years for women, when the national average was 82.6 years. The infant mortality rate for the ACT in 2000-2002 was 3.5 per 1,000 live births, against a national average of 5.2 per 1,000 live births. The ACT foetal death rate and the neonatal death rate were also below the national average in 2002-2003. In the ACT in 2002, the mortality rate per 1,000 people was the lowest, with 5.9 deaths per 1,000, the national average being 6.7.
(2) In 2002-2003, the ACT had the lowest proportion of people hospitalised for vaccine preventable conditions—33.1 per 100,000 people; for potentially preventable acute conditions—788.8 per 100,000 people; and for potentially preventable chronic conditions—1,012.9 per 100,000 people. These were all well below the national averages of 77.9, 1,283.4 and 1,757.9, respectively.
(3) Fewer Canberrans commit suicide or suffer from high levels of psychological distress than other Australians. In 2002, the ACT had the lowest suicide rate in Australia, with 8.1 suicides per 100,000 people—still too high, of course, I believe. The national average is 11.8.
Mr Stefaniak: Why don’t you table the report then?
MS MacDONALD: Please stop interjecting, Mr Stefaniak.
This rate has declined significantly since 2001, when it was 14 per 100,000 people, and is now lower than it was in 1993. The report notes that 9.2 per cent of Canberrans experienced high and very high levels of psychological distress in 2002. The national average was 12.3 per cent.
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