Page 2408 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007
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Removals from the elective surgery waiting lists have gone from just over 7,000 in 2001-02 to heading towards 10,000 in 2007-08. There has been an increase every single year being paid for by the investment in this government.
Mr Mulcahy: Varicose veins operations moving through.
MS GALLAGHER: It is not varicose veins operations, Mr Mulcahy. I know you do not like it. It does not suit the arguments that you have been running that you get more for less. If we could just have a moment of rational thought in this debate—I know it is going to be a pretty ratty day—but in terms of more for less, here we have a total budget in 2000-01 of $443,533,000 with inpatient activity of 56,645; in 2006-07, it was $762 million and cost weighted inpatient separations at 72,000, so it is a 27 per cent increase. Acute care beds in 2000-01 were 684 and acute beds in 2006-07 were 739. Rate of unplanned hospital readmissions—that is, keeping people out of hospital—in 2000-01 was 3.4 per cent. In 2006-07, it is two per cent at TCH and at Calvary it is one per cent. I know you do not like it.
Mrs Burke: It is a spin on words, I say.
MS GALLAGHER: I am not spinning words. If I could just use figures from the budget papers of the Humphries government, they are from national health data, which is used for publication in the hospitals report and in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. It is reproduced in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare hospital stats 2005-06, on page 71. Some of the figures are based upon the Australian College of Emergency Medicine. So I am not twisting figures; they are there. They do not support your argument, but there you go.
In terms of what the hospital is producing in activity for the past financial year, we delivered four per cent above the target for cost-weighted inpatient separation, which is a seven per cent increase on activity over the previous year. Emergency presentations were just under 100,000. Access block for the ACT has been reducing. In June 2007 it was 27.5 per cent, 10 per cent below that of the year before, and total access block for the hospitals was 28.6 per cent compared with 33 per cent in 2005-06 and 41 per cent in 2004-05. Again, it does not support the arguments that have been run over there. We have talked about elective surgery procedures. (Second speaking period taken.)
The number of radiation therapy patients was 11.5 per cent above the total of the previous year, with a 25 per cent increase in urgent and semi-urgent patients; 100 per cent of all radiation therapy urgent patients received care within the standard time frame and 76 per cent of all radiation therapy patients received their care on time in 2006-07. This is one per cent below the target reported in 2006-07. Ambulance off-stretcher time exceeded the target of 90 per cent, which is the transfer of care of a patient from the ambulance to the hospital emergency department in less than 20 minutes, with a total of 93 per cent, which is an improvement from 89 per cent.
Our immunisation rates continue to exceed the national benchmark of 90 per cent. The rate for 2006-07 was 91 per cent. The old persons unit is up and running and will continue to grow as demand increases. The medical assessment and planning unit is open. Sixteen of our additional 20 beds that were funded in the previous budget are
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