Page 1081 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 30 March 2011
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MS GALLAGHER: And that was the case with every health report that you put out, Mr Smyth—that your government put out. That is the case because when you are reporting on a health system, every quarter you are going to see big fluctuations, particularly in the ACT where some of your numbers are not big.
I think Mr Hanson went to the mental health access block issue. Quite frankly, I would prefer that people remain in the mental health assessment unit for as long as they need whilst their treatment plan or discharge plan is being organised. We have opened a new six-bed unit in the emergency department. The operation of that for the first year is informing us about what the needs of that client group are. There is no way from my reading of the data that we are ever going to be able to achieve a 15 per cent access block target with that client group and that performance indicator—
Mr Hanson: You said it had improved, Katy. You did not mention one negative outcome. This is the point. It is about the spin.
MS GALLAGHER: Madam Assistant Speaker, I listened to Mr Hanson—
Mr Hanson: No, you did not. You were heckling, both of you. Both of you were heckling.
MS GALLAGHER: I listened to Mr Hanson and I think that this continued interjecting from him, whilst we expect it, is unfair.
Mr Hanson: It is not continued—
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ms Le Couteur): Mr Hanson, please be quiet.
MS GALLAGHER: The mental health access block in the mental health assessment unit needs to be reviewed, because people are coming in and they are needing to stay longer as decisions are taken about whether they are transferred to the PSU, transferred to Calvary or whether they go home. There is absolutely no way we are ever going to achieve a 15 per cent access block target with that client group. That does not mean that people are not being seen, as Mr Hanson would like you to believe. In fact, in his—
Mr Smyth: That is not what he said.
MS GALLAGHER: Yes, in his address he said “waiting to be seen”. Access block is not about waiting to be seen. People are being seen and they are staying longer in the mental health assessment unit. That is a clinical decision and it is a decision that I support. It is not people waiting to be seen; they are being seen. They are not able to be discharged in the time that we have set and in the numbers that we have set to achieve that target. That target does need reviewing, just as we have a different—
Mr Hanson interjecting—
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