Page 2761 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 16 August 2005
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there were specific problems in dual-diagnosis areas in the ACT’s Aboriginal community.
It did not happen in their first year in office; it did not happen in their second year in office; it just happened in their third year in office when, at the last gasp, before the 2004 election, they suddenly realised that they had to do something because they had ignored the issue. Let us not be pointing the finger at other people. Let us look at ourselves before we get up on our high horse and in high dudgeon accuse other areas of having abandoned the things that they should be doing.
The health minister has just tabled the ACT public hospitals service activity reports for the first, second and third quarters of the 2004-05 year. In each of those reports, as is normal, there is a section about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients. Until we actually know the quantum of how large this problem is, it will be hard, as Dr Foskey has raised, to talk about the need for new and expanded services in the ACT, because you do not know how big the problem is, how much money do you put to it, where are the areas that it should be in. So I would have thought that the gathering of data would be a fairly important part of the process here, given the commitment of his government that the Chief Minister talks about and given the commitment that the Minister for Health talks about that their government has towards this issue.
It is quite interesting that for quarter 1 of 2004-05 the service activity report for ACT public hospitals says:
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Patients
Data on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inpatients should be interpreted with caution, as the proportion is based on a small number of patients and therefore subject to significant variation.
It goes on to say:
ACT Health is currently conducting a data improvement project to address the accuracy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health statistics in the ACT, including emergency and admitted patient data.
The data in the report excludes mental health and unqualified newborn patients. “We’re working on it.” That is what the government is saying in the first quarter, that is, July last year, July 2004. When you get to the second quarter, this is October through to December, what does it say about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients? It says, “We’re working on collection. ACT Health is currently conducting a data improvement project.” What do you get when you get to the third quarter? There it is, third quarter of 2004-05 service activity report, January, February, March this year, “We’re still conducting a data improvement project to address the accuracy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health statistics in the ACT.”
I know these things do take time, but unless and until we have got a commitment from the government—and we see from this government that it took more than three years for dual-diagnosis workers to arrive—on patient activity data rather than “We’re unsure of the accuracy but we’re working on it,” then it is not going to change.
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