Page 983 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 29 March 2011
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fees, secretariat and costs of public consultation. Given the scope of the work that is to be done by the council, we did suspect that the cost of the council would be slightly higher, but I imagine this will be a matter which is picked up through the one-year review of the council.
One other point my office noted was that the bill required only three members of the council to be present for a quorum. This was surprising, given that the council is likely to have, I imagine, somewhere between seven and 10 members. I appreciate again that the government has carried forward that concern and I notice that it is the subject of one of the amendments which has been put forward.
I am pleased to see that Calvary is listed as part of the network. As we know, there have been a number of inefficiencies in the past with having two quite distinct bodies operating public hospital services in the ACT. There is obviously still a lot more work to be done in this area, but Calvary’s involvement in the council is a positive step. All parties seem to agree that the network would be much more efficient and service the health consumer better if we were able to take a regional approach and include neighbouring hospitals in New South Wales and the region.
Unfortunately, this has not been achieved through the current consultations and arrangements, but the government’s information paper from earlier this year did say that this was something that was being worked through with the New South Wales government. The Greens do remain hopeful that the negotiations will be successful so that our bureaucracies can better mirror and respond to the health needs of consumers and how they engage with health services.
Obviously, one issue which has already been discussed by Mr Hanson relates to the members of the council. This was a concern that the Greens identified and it relates to clause 17, which deals with the membership of the council. Some of the key responses to the government’s consultation on the establishment of the council remarked that the membership of the council should be based on skills and knowledge rather than specifying membership of certain groups. Skills such as public consultation, knowledge of consumer and carer issues as well as hospital management have been catered for in the legislation.
However, the government did go to specifying that a medical practitioner with clinical experience was required, which I think does go against some of the comments that have come forth from the community—obviously not from the AMA. I think our issue here is that it does essentially create a conflict in that there is not a specified requirement for someone from other professions, such as nursing or allied health.
I will be moving amendments, although I think that there is some confusion about them. I have got amendments which I will be moving in the detail stage of the debate around this. As I said, our intention behind this is to stop the conflict and any fights, I guess, breaking out between different professions.
I note that Mr Hanson has said that the AMA would specifically like medical practitioners to be mentioned. I think it would be highly unlikely that a medical practitioner would not be included in this sort of advisory council. Nonetheless, that
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