Page 830 - Week 02 - Thursday, 12 February 2009
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Ms Gallagher: The answer to the member’s question is as follows:
(1) No. The significant changes to the infrastructure at our hospitals, together with the considerable changes to the way in which services are provided make any comparison between the early 1970s and current provision of service of little use. A large range of services previously provided in a hospital environment are now provided in a community setting. In addition, a number of illnesses which required lengthy hospital stays now require only short term hospital admission and the ageing of the population has changed the type of services that are provided within hospitals.
Our hospitals currently have 68 wards in operation. There are 51 wards in operation across the TCH campus and 17 wards in use at Calvary Public Hospital. Preliminary results show that during 2007 08, our public hospitals provided an average of 853 beds, up 29 percent from the 670 beds available in our public hospital system at the end of the previous Government’s term in 2001-02.
(2) The $1 billion re-development of our public hospital infrastructure launched by the Government in 2008 reflects the fact that our public hospital is reaching its capacity in terms of available space for beds, clinics, offices and other necessary spaces.
In addition, it is not appropriate to suggest that all spaces within a hospital should be available only for bed spaces. As an example, the significant increase in the number of staff specialists employed at our public hospitals and the increased emphasis on providing care in the least invasive manner, has resulted in significant increase in demand for outpatient type services. These services require the provision of suitable office space for doctors and treatment and waiting areas for patients.
The most appropriate measure of the capacity of our hospitals to meet the demand from the community is the bed occupancy rate. A bed occupancy rate of around 85% is considered optimum in terms of patient care and efficiency. Over the last three years, the additional beds provided by the ACT Government for our public hospitals has enabled our hospitals to reduce bed capacity from 96% in 2005-06, to 91% in 2006-07 and 89% in 2007-08.
(3) The biggest impact on the capacity of our hospitals to meet the growing demand from our community was the considerable reduction in the number of available hospital beds over the period of the previous Government from 1995.
In 1995-96, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) reported that our public hospitals had an average capacity of 780 beds. By the end of the Government’s second term in 2001-02, this had dropped to just 670 beds.
Over the six years to 2007-08, the current Government has funded the establishment of a further 181 beds – with a total of 851 beds available on average during 2007-08 (up from the initial estimate of 830 beds that I advised the community a few months ago).
A further 25 beds will be opened during 2008-09 including 20 general ward beds, three cancer service beds and two new ICU beds.
We are also undertaking capital works at TCH to provide for the new Surgical Assessment and Planning Unit in 2009 10 and to meet additional demands from the community.
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