Page 2345 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 23 June 2010
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have medical surgery performed. I am sure a person could become incredibly anxious if they have been told by a doctor they need the surgery within a certain amount of days but that time period has passed.
The ACT elective surgery waiting list has some unique qualities, as evidenced in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s Australian hospital statistics. We have long waiting lists—our median waiting time is the longest in the country—but we also have the second highest rate of demand per 1,000 people and the smallest number of available hospitals. Later I will move an amendment to Mr Hanson’s motion to reflect this, as the story is somewhat bigger than the figures presented.
It is worth acknowledging that, because of the size of our health system, it is difficult and often not possible to have particular specialists on staff, which quite obviously affects the ACT’s elective surgery waiting lists. There are, however, concerns that have been raised and these need to be given due regard. It is worth noting at this point that the Auditor-General provided an audit report on elective surgery waiting lists in late 2004. The public accounts committee looked into the matter in 2005 and the government provided its response in 2008.
The Greens acknowledge that there have been allegations in recent weeks that the administration area of ACT Health has possibly downgraded patients from category 1 to category 2 if they had not had their surgery performed within 30 days. There have been discussions that some states in Australia have possibly used various tools or methods to impact on their waiting lists. I think it is important that the ACT is able to say it is not one of them. These allegations, it is true, have not been proven correct, but neither have they been proven false. It is important that we as an Assembly endorse a method of investigation that can clarify to the community what is occurring and hopefully reassure them that the waiting list has not been manipulated.
We could endorse a variety of investigations, several of which have been discussed with other parties today and are reflected in my amendment, the minister’s amendment and Mr Hanson’s motion. The first, obviously, was presented by Mr Hanson in the motion. However, I expect it would be quite difficult for ACT Health to provide such data in the time and manner required. It may depend on the manner in which reports can be extracted for the data. It was the Greens’ original preference to see the Health Services Commissioner investigate the allegations of downgrading patients. Through our discussions with Ms Durkin she indicated she was willing to undertake this investigation but, given current resource levels, the commissioner would have needed additional resourcing to perform the duty.
The public accounts committee from the last Assembly recommended that the waiting time and elective patient management policy, which the minister has mentioned today, which commenced on 1 January 2008, should be publicly reviewed after three years. The government at the time said that it would review the policy internally on a regular basis. I appreciate that the Minister for Health has offered to have that review done, and by an independent reviewer. If you look at that policy document as it is currently available online it says that its review date is 31 December 2010. I expect the government is intending to keep to that written commitment. I do not think that by taking that on today we would have achieved much that was beyond what could already be expected.
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