Page 409 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 12 February 2013
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But, yes, in elective surgery wait times we still want to see improvement, despite this report actually showing significant improvements in our median wait times and the fact that the share of patients who waited a year for surgery has reduced. Those are the long-wait patients. That is something that we should be pleased about—the fact that we are seeing record levels of elective surgery, the fact that we have delivered, I think, over 11,300 operations, which is about 1,500 more on the previous year. Again, that does not sound very much, but it has a huge impact on those people who are waiting. It does not happen by accident. It happens because you see an issue, you inject the resources, you restructure the workplace, you look at your work practices and you start to focus or see those results improve, despite continuing demand.
On emergency departments, I think the discussion has been well articulated in this place. Mr Hanson will not be able to come in and say “worst emergency waiting times in the country” because this report actually shows that small jurisdictions struggle. So let us have a rational discussion about it, where you have two hospitals servicing an urban population like ours. Go and have a look at Perth. Have a look at the Perth hospital waiting times when an urban population is being serviced by a relatively small number of hospitals in WA’s CBD. Look at the Northern Territory. They have exactly the same issues. You have population centres and to some extent your primary health services are not as prevalent as in other major centres across Australia. You also do not have the small district hospitals that are servicing very small populations. There are some quite rational arguments—not that those ever get treated with any respect in this place. I am not using that to shy away from the fact that we do need to continue to invest in emergency department staff. Additional staff will help. We need the reorganisation of the emergency departments, the rebuild that is underway at both hospitals. That will help.
In relation to the Alexander Maconochie Centre, I really need to address some of the comments that have been made. The opposition joyfully ran to the media with news of the high rate of prison escapees, which is presented in this report as a rate per 100 detainees. The ACT’s prison population is very small, with just 259 prisoners. By comparison, there are around 29,000 prisoners nationally The ROGS data showed the one unsuccessful attempted escape as an escape rate of 13.25 per 100 detainees, compared to the national average of 0.44. I know it is hard to get that, but it was one unsuccessful escape attempt that skews the data in this way. So instead of racing around and celebrating that because the AMC looked to have had a poor result in that area, you actually drill down and ask the questions about why it is doing that. When you look at cost, Tasmania’s prisoner population is also small but it has double the number of ACT prisoners, with just over 500 prisoners. Its rate is $25 less than the ACT result. Our costs are coming down as the numbers of prisoners increase.
I would also say that philosophically we have a difference of opinion with the Canberra Liberals about the jail. Mr Wall called it a resort. I do not think he has actually been out there. You need to go out there and have a look. I do not think you would leave that place and say that it was a resort. I can certainly say it is not a resort I would be wanting to spend one night in. I have visited there a number of times. The philosophical disagreement is you guys never believed we should have a jail in the ACT. You believe we should ship off all these disadvantaged people—
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