Page 4963 - Week 13 - Thursday, 12 November 2009
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has indicated through the agreements reached to date, the agreements in principle, that it is happy to contemplate the sale of the fabric of Calvary Public Hospital to the ACT government.
They are positions that I am supportive of. I am a long-time member of the Palliative Care Society—indeed a past president of the ACT Hospice Palliative Care Society—and as a long-term member of the Palliative Care Society I am supportive of the proposal. I am supportive as Chief Minister and I am supportive as a member of the society. I am supportive as a past president of the ACT Hospice Palliative Care Society of the ACT. I am supportive as the president that led the community campaign to have a hospice established for the ACT.
I have to say that for me perhaps the most fulfilling achievement of my non-political life was the campaign which I managed and led to have the hospice established for the people of the ACT. (Time expired.)
MR SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, a supplementary question?
MR HANSON: Chief Minister, what considerations led the government to agree to transferring ownership of the hospice to the Little Company of Mary?
MR STANHOPE: The considerations that are relevant are that the Little Company of Mary is recognised internationally as perhaps the pre-eminent provider of palliative care services or services for the terminally ill within our communities. It is the pre-eminent international provider of palliative care services. I do not think anybody who has had an association with palliative or hospice care would dispute that. The Little Company of Mary’s mission, as established by Mary Potter, was to care for the dying within our communities.
Mr Hanson: The sick and dying, if you read it.
MR STANHOPE: The order was established with an explicit purpose to support—
Mr Hanson: The sick and dying.
MR STANHOPE: You are being incredibly disrespectful to Mary Potter, to the Little Company of Mary and to the hospice movement.
Mr Hanson: How? Because I correct you on the mission of the Little Company of Mary, which you got wrong?
MR STANHOPE: I am answering your question—
Mr Hanson: How is that disrespectful?
MR STANHOPE: Is it not the case that the Little Company of Mary was established by Mary Potter to care for the needs of the dying?
Mr Hanson: Don’t they do that well?
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