Page 479 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 5 March 2008
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
area. I refer the minister to table 10.7 of the report, which shows that the ACT had the longest waiting times for elective surgery. At each of the percentiles shown in the report, the ACT had the highest waiting times for elective surgery. At the 50th percentile, ACT patients waited 61 days compared to a national average of 32 days. At the 90th percentile, ACT patients waited 372 days compared to a national average of 237 days. The ACT also had the highest percentage of patients waiting more than a year for elective surgery: 10.3 per cent of patients wait more than one year for elective surgery, compared with a national average of 4.6 per cent.
I have previously made the point that this poor performance has not necessarily been due to a lack of money. In fact, the ACT has been spending more than any other jurisdiction. In particular, on a casemix adjusted separation basis the recurrent cost has been higher in the ACT than in any other jurisdiction in Australia. I made the same observation after the budget in 2005; we still seem to be in the same predicament.
It is quite extraordinary to look over these reports, because again and again we see the ACT spending the most money but achieving lower standards of service. This is quite clear evidence that there are some gross inefficiencies in ACT public hospitals and that there is substantial scope for improvement. There is substantial scope for greater service if the government matched the performance of other jurisdictions.
When I say that there are inefficiencies in the hospitals, I want to make sure that I do not get misconstrued, misreported or misinterpreted as reflecting on the quality of those working on the front line of health care. Somebody made the remark to me the other day—and that person is involved in nursing—that they are getting quite distressed at the hospital because people are coming in aware of the ongoing debate about health and the management of the hospital system and are making the inaccurate assumption that the people working there on the front line must not be medically competent. There is no basis for that sort of statement. It is very important that the public understand that those that are working there seem to be doing the very best they can under not easy circumstances.
In my comments here about efficiencies, I am talking about managerial efficiencies and the way in which the resources are allocated. My concern is that those who are working on the front line are complaining that they are under-resourced and understaffed, and this contributes to the delays that people are experiencing. I do not think it is fair to interpret that as saying that we do not have competent people in our hospitals. On the occasions when my family has had to use the hospital—with some exceptions back in the early part of this decade, which influenced my decision to run for this place—overall the experiences have been fairly positive and the people seem very dedicated. So I put that qualifier on these remarks.
The figures from the Productivity Commission confirm what we have seen in previous reports by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the Australian government state of our hospitals reports. We cannot do anything about this problem if we continue to ignore the evidence. The minister has attempted to brag about the performance of ACT public hospitals in the Assembly; it may be a nice way of stirring up some patriotic ACT fervour by posturing herself as a friend of hospital
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .