Page 384 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 7 March 2006
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that still need attention in the health system, and we are continually looking at better ways to do things.
There is, in any debate about public heath services, a place for genuine criticism. There are things that can be done better. But the continued harping about crisis in the health system by those opposite has two major, troubling outcomes: firstly, it unnecessarily reduces the confidence of the community in their health system; and, secondly, it impacts on the morale of the public health work force.
So where is the support from the opposition for the tremendous achievements our work force has already notched up over the last three years in improving care and access for the people of the ACT? Where is the acknowledgement from those opposite of the effort of clinicians and administrators in redesigning our health services to meet the current and future needs of our population? Many people who encounter our health system every day are already fearful and vulnerable. That is the nature of a healthcare problem. But it is scurrilous to further add to people’s fears without foundation, simply for political advantage.
The ACT community has access to one of the best public hospital systems in the world. I give members a snapshot on what that means. In the last full year, ACT public hospitals provided for 69,627 cost-weighted inpatient separations, an increase of 12 per cent over three years. The hospitals cared for 93,710 people who attended our emergency departments, including an increase of 47 per cent in those patients with the most urgent needs over the last three years. They provided access to elective surgery for over 8,600 people, the highest level of elective surgery on record and almost 1,000 more than two years ago. And they managed an increase of 14 per cent in the number of outpatient services.
The latest quarterly activity report on health services, for the December period, which I released, provides more evidence of the improved access to services across a full range of hospital and acute and non-acute care. For example, we are on target to exceed last year’s elective surgery record by more than 300 additional operations. The number of people waiting for elective surgery has dropped by more than 10 per cent over the 2005 calendar year. Day-of-surgery admission rates have exceeded the target of 80 per cent for the first time since we started counting them over five years ago. Waiting times for in-hospital, aged-care assessments averaged 1.3 working days in this quarter, well below the target of 10 working days.
Access block, which Mrs Burke alluded to, across both our public hospitals was at 31 per cent in the December quarter 2005, a considerable drop from the 42 per cent recorded in the same quarter in 2004. When you look, for example, at our tertiary care hospital, Canberra Hospital, it has dropped from 45 to 27 per cent.
Waiting times for breast screening dropped in the December quarter as well, and the number of screens was more than 50 per cent up on the same quarter in 2004. The rate of post-hospital follow-up for mental health clients exceeded the target in the quarter. And the total hospital in-patient activity is up 11 per cent on the total reported for the same quarter in 2004-05.
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