Page 2681 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 June 2012
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Health—services
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (11.08): I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) notes that amongst a number of failures across the management of health in the ACT: (a) the percentage of Emergency Department patients seen on time has deteriorated from 78 percent in 2001 to 58 percent in the latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) Hospital Statistics report;
(b) that due to a conflict of interest, Katy Gallagher MLA recently stood aside from investigations into the falsification of Emergency Department results;
(c) the median wait time for elective surgery has grown from 44 days in AIHW Hospital Statistics 2000-01 to 76 days in the latest AIHW report;
(d) that in 2011 the Auditor-General found that elective surgery “downgrades of patients’ urgency category, often without documented clinical reasons, raised considerable doubts about the reliability and appropriateness of the clinical classifications for patients on the waiting lists”;
(e) the Minister for Health denied, then attempted to cover up, serious complaints of bullying at The Canberra Hospital in 2010;
(f) the ACT has become chronically short of general practitioners, bulk billing rates are the lowest in the nation and the cost of visiting a general practitioner is the highest in the nation;
(g) the Minister for Health misled the community at the 2008 election over her bungled plans to purchase Calvary Hospital and sell Clare Holland House;
(h) the Minister for Health broke her 2008 election promise of three nurse-led walk-in clinics and a secure mental health facility;
(i) there has been disruption, delay and cost blowouts across numerous health infrastructure projects; and
(j) the ACT Visiting Medical Officers Association lost confidence in Katy Gallagher MLA and called for her to be dismissed as Minister for Health; and
(2) calls on the Minister for Health to explain to the Assembly why access to health care in the ACT has deteriorated under 11 years of the ACT Labor Government.
I welcome this opportunity to talk about health services in the ACT, particularly in light of the budget that was passed yesterday and the conversation that we had at the Press Club this morning. We all know that there is a $318million deficit coming up
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