Page 2963 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 16 October 2007
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MS MacDONALD (Brindabella) (4.51): I would also like to thank Mr Mulcahy for putting this on the notice paper, bringing this matter of public importance forward, because, unlike the suggestions that have been made, this government does care about the hospital. As Mr Corbell said before, this government does acknowledge that there will always be more that needs to be done within the heath system, but I would actually say as well that the healthcare system is complex; it requires constant maintenance; and unfortunately there will be times when things go wrong. But these need to be looked at with a level head and not treated in an hysterical fashion. Nor can the health system’s letdowns be dealt with by simplistic solutions. There is no quick fix; we need to look at the system as a whole, not in pieces.
I would also just say: Mrs Burke made some comments about the ACT having the second highest rates of MRSA. I was not aware of that, and I would be curious to know where she got that information from or whether she is just getting that from talkback that has gone on, because I am aware that discussion about MRSA has happened on talkback radio in the last few days. So I would actually question the accuracy of that.
The minister has already reported to the Assembly on previous occasions about the results of initiatives. These include access block at our hospitals in the fourth quarter of 2006-07, which was 26.3 per cent, well down from the 33 per cent reported the previous year and well below the 44 per cent reported for the fourth quarter of 2004-05. In fact, I understand it is the lowest reported for over three years.
I know that the acting minister also made the following comments today in answer to my question: in August 2007, the emergency department access block was 27 per cent, which is a reduction of five per cent from the 33 per cent access block reported 12 months ago in August 2006. Our hospital bed occupancy rate in 2006-07 was 91 per cent, compared with 97 per cent for the same quarter in 2005-06. This is a significant result and further evidence of the success of our initiatives in increasing access to care.
Ambulance off-stretcher times continue to improve, with 93 per cent of patients offloaded from ambulances within 20 minutes of arrival at ACT public hospitals in 2006-07. This is an improvement over the 89.6 per cent reported for the 2005-06 period. It is essential to have proper staffing levels to support our services and we need to keep working on staffing shortages in our emergency departments to build on the good outcomes I have just mentioned.
There has been a lot of talk about staffing problems in our emergency department. Unfortunately, this is an international problem. Our hospitals have been busy undertaking activities to increase medical staffing. These include the identification of emergency department services as an area of need which enables ACT Health to attract overseas-trained doctors to our services. We are currently proceeding with an offer of appointment of two senior physicians from America. It is expected they will join our services within the next four to six months.
Another thing that is being done to deal with this is the introduction of special employment agreements in the ED that provide better conditions and pay for
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