Page 2409 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007
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provided through the medical assessment and planning unit, which those opposite voted against last year when they opposed the budget.
Mrs Burke: That is spinning.
MS GALLAGHER: You did; you voted against the budget. BreastScreen ACT provided just under 12,000 screens in 2006-07, up four per cent. There has been a six per cent increase in the number of women screened in the target group. Waiting times for assignment of clients to community health and mental health teams remain well below the target of four days. The dental service continues to deliver emergency dental health care to all clients within standard time frames.
The alcohol and drug program created new client pathways with the Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service for indigenous opioid treatment clients and is now reviewing and modifying the pathways to respond to specific client circumstances. The child youth and women’s program commenced health assessments for children in out-of-home care. The chronic and complex care coordinator, which was established last year to provide nursing and allied health clinicians and managers with specialist advice, has developed well proactively to manage clinical risks on behalf of this client group and there is more money in this year’s budget to deal with that.
A range of work was done around tobacco control: sales to minors and the smoke-free campaign. Food safety programs commenced. The Go for 2&5 campaign keeps going. I could keep going. It is also important to say, with all the talking down that is done of the health system, those opposite can complain about the health system and then say they are not complaining about the health system—
Mrs Burke: We are not complaining about the people in it.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MS GALLAGHER: But the hospital is run by managers who are, more normally than not, health professionals who work in the system. You cannot separate the two. You cannot say that we have a Third-World health system here—
Mrs Burke: I did not say that.
MS GALLAGHER: You have said that—and then take a step away from that and say, “But I’m not complaining about anyone who works in the system.” The measure of outcomes is delivered by people who work in the system. So you cannot have it both ways. You cannot say that it is my fault someone has a delay of one day in their treatment without having an impact on the health professionals working in the hospital system. You just cannot do it.
All our data here—and this is what I am trying to get through to those opposite, but they do not care about data—shows that people have very high confidence in our health system. That is not to say that in providing 72,000 inpatient separations or 100,000 presentations to the emergency department you are not going to have people who had a bad experience, who waited too long for treatment, who had complaints.
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