Page 383 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 7 March 2006
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The ACT public hospitals are both significantly affected. The declining ratio of inpatient beds per 100,000 population has been associated with a 54% increase in ED workload and a 500% increase in patients experiencing excessive waiting time.
Dissatisfaction at this current situation by the public and the staff is profound.
It is key to addressing this problem to recognise that the fundamental issue is inadequate numbers of inpatient beds. Enhancing of after hours GP services, while a laudable plan, will not have a measurable effect on Emergency Department performance.
We, the ACT faculty of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine regretfully draw to the attention of interested parties a progressively worsening problem with Emergency Department overcrowding in the ACT. It is our collective opinion that patients’ lives are being endangered to an unacceptable degree at an unacceptable frequency. Our conclusion is that while some mitigation of the problem has been obtained by further improvements in efficiency, the solution must also be addressed at its root, which we believe to be a situation where inpatient beds per 100,000 population ratios are simply too low to meet the needs of the community.
Nearly two years on we now have the empirical evidence to back what the ACEM was saying. It is clear that there is a desperate need for more hospital beds in the ACT. The answer to the problems faced by our hospitals will not be totally provided by more beds, but it is an essential part of any solution. There are other components to the solution, the most critical being prevention.
The government needs to face up to its responsibilities in the other areas of public health delivery, particularly in relation to mental health, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Nationally, these diseases are set to cost in excess of $15.8 billion per year at the end of the year; yet all of them, to a certain extent, are preventable.
The solution to the ACT’s overcrowding problems needs three things: (1) improved process; (2) preventative work; and (3) more beds.
The minister can go on at length about his beloved discharge lounge, but the reality is that it is no good without more beds.
While the research is disturbing, it presents us with an opportunity. The opportunity is that the government can no longer stare down the fact that our hospitals are overcrowded and that this overcrowding produces bad outcomes. Perhaps now, at last, in conclusion, the government will act and restore the health system to something in keeping with community expectation.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (4.04): I welcome this opportunity for a genuine discussion on the state of the public health system in the ACT. Let me start by stating that the people of the ACT and the surrounding region continue to have access to a high-quality and responsive public health service. When it comes to this, no government has made a greater investment in the health of our people than this one. That said, we acknowledge that there are issues
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