Page 1875 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 7 June 2006
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Let us look at Mr Corbell’s commitment to reducing hospital waiting lists for elective surgery. Let us look at this search for beds. In March 2001 Michael Moore announced that we would build a step-down facility so that people could move out of expensive acute care beds, at about $960 a day, to rehabilitation beds at about $160 a day. Pretty good maths, a good deal for those who are getting the attention and care they deserve. Where is it? It is still not open, five and a bit years later, it is still not open. There is commitment. That is a sure sign of commitment from this government to the people of the ACT and their hospital system.
Part (2) of Mr Gentleman’s motion recognises the continuing commitment. Five and a half years of continuing commitment. That is commitment; let alone the monetary losses the system has suffered; let alone the sort of inappropriate care that people receive; let alone the pressure it put on the system; let alone the people who were excluded from elective surgery because they could not get a bed; let alone the people who could not get admitted to the hospital and had to wait in the emergency department for long periods of time because they could not be admitted; let alone the people who rested on gurneys in hospital corridors attended by paramedics, when ambulances could not leave because they were tied up because they could not admit a patient; let alone the families who suffered as they watched their loved ones in pain; let alone the employment opportunities these people suffered because they could not get elective surgery; let alone the economic costs to the people of the ACT.
You are fooling yourself here if you think it takes 5½ years to build a step-down facility. If you think 5½ years is a commitment, then you are absolutely fooling yourself. It is symptomatic. How many reforms have we had to reduce bed block and elective surgery? I can name about four or five reforms that ministers were forced to put in place to clear bed block, but we see in this year’s figures that bed block is not getting any better. This is not commitment. This is failure.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Minister for Health, Minister for Disability and Community Services, Minister for Women and Acting Minister for Housing) (5.18): I thank Mr Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to talk today about the public health system in the ACT. It goes without saying that every community needs an effective public health system. That the ACT has such an effective public health system is self-evident. Canberrans are healthier and live longer.
According to the report on government services, we have the lowest mortality rate and infant mortality rate in the country, we have the highest proportion of children who are fully immunised, and we have the lowest rates of potentially preventable hospitalisation for acute and chronic conditions. Through ACT Health, we are working at improving our public health system.
Mr Speaker, the government provides a full range of acute care, including inpatient, outpatient and emergency department services, at the Canberra Hospital and Calvary Public Hospital. Whenever the Canberra Hospital is mentioned, we hear cries of doom and gloom from those opposite, as we just heard in a rather hysterical speech about the health system here, and they are always about bypass.
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