Page 3324 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 August 2008
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Stefaniak promises. You have to try and work it out, or do we lump them all together and say, “This is the deal”? There was no mention of this yesterday in Mrs Burke’s comments or Mr Seselja’s comments about all the other stuff. I am confused. Maybe it will be explained later on.
The incentive fund proposed by the Canberra Liberals and the entrepreneurial fund are targeted initiatives, but I am sceptical whether these will have the desired effect. It concerns me whenever government tries to get involved with or subsidise entrepreneurial activities. I know that Mr Smyth thinks it is great to get into airlines. What was that mob that went broke—Impulse? Then there was Fujitsu. The approach is, “Let’s get into the business of being entrepreneurs. We will play with other people’s money. We are really not up to taking the risk ourselves. We do not have the means. Let’s be entrepreneurs in government.” I worry about these things. There is a long history of them failing. The dangers that exist in the health system are as many as, if not greater than, in other areas, with an annual increase in costs of 11 per cent. Whilst you might say that there is some merit in these schemes, they are dangerous—just as government involvement in entrepreneurial schemes is dangerous.
The suggestion that ANU Medical School graduates should be guaranteed internship places is somewhat problematic since it detracts from the application of the merit principle of selecting the best interns. Dr Foskey had that view and on this occasion I agree with her. There are many medical schools in Australia and there may well be applications for internship places from medical graduates from interstate or even overseas. Perhaps it is old fashioned of me, but I do not believe in provincial affirmative action. I think that the interns admitted to our hospital should be the best medical students we can find, regardless of whether they went to school at the ANU or elsewhere.
Years from now when interns at the Canberra Hospital have become fully fledged doctors, the patients under the scalpel will want to know that they are the best qualified for the job. I do not think they will take much comfort in the idea that the person may not be the best, but at least he or she comes from the local university. This is not good policy and it is not something that I am at all comfortable with.
If you know anything about medical training—my brother is a specialist—you know that you do not get all your local experience in a town of 330,000. Why do people think doctors go to Dublin and New York? They go overseas for broader clinical experience. You go to cities where you actually see, for example, gunshot wounds. We might not get many in Canberra, but if you sit around waiting for six months for that clinical experience, you will not advance your skills. Doctors go to places where there are a lot of examples of different illnesses, conditions and diseases so that they can bring that skill back to their own communities. Hopefully they are better qualified and hopefully they are able to provide good service.
I have issues with parts of the government amendment. Proposed paragraph (a) is worth supporting; frontline medical staff are to be congratulated on their efforts. But I do not entirely accept proposed paragraph (b) which asserts that it is the responsibility of the commonwealth to ensure that adequate primary healthcare services are provided in our community. The ACT has a major role. I accept that the commonwealth has a pre-eminent role, but I have issues with that paragraph.
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