Page 3428 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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I read out all of those organisations and all of those names because not one area is more important or less important than the others, but it is the coordination of work done across the board by all of our hardworking staff in the Health Directorate that I pay tribute to today. I congratulate them on the work that they are doing. And I look forward to continued engagement with the Health Directorate in coming months and years.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (5.00): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Ms Gallagher interjecting—
MS BRESNAN: Can we just stop the clock, please. I could not start because people were talking across the chamber.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ms Bresnan.
MS BRESNAN: The Greens welcome the new appropriations to the health budget. Overwhelmingly, the majority of the health budget goes towards acute care. The Greens recognise the increasing growth in the number of people presenting to acute health services, but I will again point to the need—many health groups made this point also—to put more health funds into preventative health care measures and services. While all parties talk about preventative health, an ongoing focus on acute care and issues such as quantitative measures and targets, including emergency department waiting times and elective surgery, comes at the expense of looking at what we need to do in preventative health to address the ever-increasing demand on, in particular, the hospital system.
This is a conversation governments are going to have to have with the community as the burden of disease related to conditions such as diabetes and heart disease increase—conditions which are preventable and in most instances are related to factors such as diet and inactivity.
As I stated in my in-principle budget reply speech, the budget provides $109,505,000 in new recurrent funding for the Health Directorate, but there is a small fraction of this directed to preventative and primary health initiatives.
There is $100,000 a year for a healthy weight action plan, yet type II diabetes is set to overtake heart disease and mental illness as having the largest burden of disease in our community. The refunding of the Heart Foundation’s active living program, at $485,000 over three years, by the Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate is very much welcome, but it is a small part of what needs to be done to address the main causes of the burden of disease in the community.
The Greens recognise that health growth funding does need to go towards services to maintain critical care capacity, surgical services, and the emergency department.
Another key issue that needs to be addressed to a greater extent in health is the social determinants of health, as a person’s income is the most likely determinant of their
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