Page 1270 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 2013
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Very briefly, I would like to raise the issue of a second hospice. Calvary Health Care already provides an excellent and high-quality service at Clare Holland House. However, as our population ages, this will be increasingly important. We know there is and will be an increased demand for palliative care in the future and we believe that it is time to look at a second hospice in Canberra.
Finally, I would like to turn to dental health. This may seem like a minor issue to some, but the effects on people and people’s lives from poor dental health can be immense. Too many Australians go without dental treatment because they find it too expensive. This has been a big issue for the Greens nationally. Of course, the Denticare scheme is now getting there, thanks to the work of Senator Richard Di Natale and our Australian Greens colleagues, who last year negotiated major dental health reform worth $5 billion with the Australian government. As part of this reform, 3.5 million children will be eligible for Medicare-funded dental care and $1.3 billion will be invested into the public dental health system.
In the ACT, the Greens want to complement that work by boosting services at a local level. For adults who are eligible for the ACT’s public dental service, only 12 per cent access it and they face an average wait of 12 months. The Greens support local health groups who are advocating for better use of dental hygienists as a way of providing improved preventative dental services.
In summary, I think the ACT health system is generally in a pretty good state, but there are certainly a number of areas where a relatively small amount of money could go a long way towards improving many people’s lives. The health initiatives in the parliamentary agreement are some of those steps, but the Greens also look forward to other initiatives being progressed over the next few years, such as more walk-in centres with their proven track record of success.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.06): It is funny that the Chief Minister talks about stump speeches. Yes, Mr Hanson has made speeches before, as have all of us, about the state of health in the ACT, particularly the hospital system. But it is interesting that the number of stumps continues to grow. Ms Gallagher talked about this being a speech from 2010, then 2011, 2012 and 2013. It has changed from 2010 and 2011 and 2012 and 2013. It has got worse. We have seen the declines in waiting lists. We have seen declines in wait times. We have seen the government not meet targets and we have seen new issues appear every year.
The 2011 stump speech would have been well and truly superseded by the 2012 version, which included the doctoring of the ED numbers. If the Chief Minister fails to realise that that makes it a different issue, then she is fooling herself. Before then, we had the war on obstetrics and before that we had issue after issue after issue. This year, of course, the issue now is will the $800 million heart of the Canberra Hospital, a 10-storey tower redevelopment, go ahead or not? That is why this issue is raised today and that is why it is important that we have these discussions. It is because we have got a health minister who has her head in the sand and refuses to acknowledge that after 11 years of transformational reforms, things have not got better in the health system.
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