Page 3121 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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2,144 full-time equivalent nurses and midwives. The Liberals scraped by with fewer than 300 doctors and less than 1,300 nurses. There was not a nurse-led walk-in clinic. There was not a mental health assessment unit or popular step-up, step-down mental health facilities. They could not even manage an adequate mental health unit.
There were not any complex eye surgery procedures or state-of-the-art treatments for head and neck trauma. There was not a dedicated neuro suite for performing life-saving surgery. There was not a dedicated hospital for women and children where, right now, Canberra babies are being born in facilities that are as fine as any in the world, watched over and cared for by staff who are as good as any in the world.
There was no purpose-built radiation oncology bunker equipped with four radiation oncology machines achieving amazing results like there is now. There was no vision for community health centres like the new ones we are rolling out across the city—in Gungahlin, Tuggeranong and Belconnen—to ease pressure in the hospitals and to allow people to access healthcare close to where they live. There was no neonatal intensive care unit video streaming service, no digital mammography, no surgical assessment unit, no medical assessment unit, no integrated cancer centre, no adequate parking at the Canberra Hospital, no Village Creek facility, no PET/CT scanner, no additional increases to subacute care for respite for cancer patients, and no comprehensive e-health program. There was not a second cardiac catheter lab either, or the capacity we have created in hospital in the home services.
There was no patient safety and quality unit—the changes that were implemented after the Dr Newcombe case. There was no GP liaison. There was no dedicated phone service for GPs to contact doctors in the hospital, no paediatric ED service, no paediatric waiting area in the ED, no volunteers program in the ED. There was no comprehensive strategy to deal with the management of chronic disease, no home telemonitoring, no chronic disease telephone coaching service, no capital region retrieval service, no ACT neonatal emergency transfer service, no impact program for vulnerable families, no mental health community policing program, no risky foot clinic, no purpose-built discharge lounge, no support for GPs or GPs-in-training—no scholarships, infrastructure payments or training payments.
There was no plan about the care of subacute patients like the one we are planning with a new subacute facility. There was no Canberra Hospital Foundation undertaking fundraising for the community by the community. There was no sleep laboratory, no surgeries being performed at Queanbeyan hospital, no planning for regional health services, no GP aged day-care service visiting elderly Canberrans in nursing homes.
That was the health system that the Liberals so fondly remember—a picture of inadequate investment, inadequate planning, not enough services and no plan for the future.
We have made health our priority. We have invested record amounts in health and addressed the inadequate services and inadequate bed numbers, and we have increased the workforce. While the Liberals closed beds, blew up a hospital and actually reduced nursing numbers, we have strategically and methodically invested in health, year after year, delivering more services, more doctors and nurses, more community facilities, more care to more Canberrans when and where they need it.
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