Page 698 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 11 February 2009
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admitted, but we have been saying for quite some time that many of the new beds needed could be lower acute beds at step-down facilities enabling convalescing patients to be discharged earlier from the acute care hospitals.
If the AMA really wants to ensure that taxpayers get best value for our health dollar, they will also advocating for health care to be provided in the most appropriate setting, which means more primary health care and preventative services, and not just more acute care beds.
I place a high level of respect to the comments made by the Health Care Consumers Association, for it is the consumers more than anyone that have the most to lose when there are problems in our health care system.
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (6.31): Mr Speaker, I certainly am happy to acknowledge some of the positive outcomes that we get in the ACT health system. Certainly our category 1 performance is good. I acknowledge that and I certainly acknowledge the hard working individuals that we have across the spectrum of health care professionals in the ACT, particularly those on the front line—the nurses, the doctors, the allied health professionals and so on in our emergency departments who are dealing with patients every day and doing so extremely well. We also have good clinical outcomes. I do acknowledge that.
My criticism, though, is in some specific areas, and the minister, I feel, talked up some of the highlights of the health system. What I am focusing on is those areas of greatest need, and they are: the waiting times in emergency department, the waiting times for elective surgery, GP numbers and bed occupancy rates. I have singled out those issues because they are significant issues.
The minister said that there is an obsession with the emergency department and elective surgery. There is within the community—I do not know if “obsession” is the right word—certainly a concern, and a grave concern, because the reality is that there are not enough GPs in the community and there are not enough community-based health resources across the spectrum of mental health and a whole range of other areas of need and chronic illness.
So the reality is that emergency departments have become an area where people do end up. The minister says it is an obsession; I would say it is an area of concern. When people are waiting protracted periods for elective surgery—and often it is the elderly waiting for a hip replacement and so on—I guess they do get slightly obsessed.
Maybe the minister can clarify this, but I thought that the Nurse Practitioner Centre at the Canberra Hospital was still going through its period of consultation. My understanding was that no decision had been made about what format that was going to take or, indeed, the location. I understand the reasons why that is being presented and put forward in that location, but I am not sure if that is pre-emptive and whether we have actually made that decision at this stage.
The minister criticised our desire to put GPs in the suburbs and the AMA has raised concerns about competitive work practices or salaries. I understand they are raising similar concerns about nurse-led clinics in the suburb.
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