Page 2645 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 7 August 2013
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I had been watching what was happening at Royal North Shore Hospital, which has an emergency department with very similar characteristics to ours. I know it is hard to listen to, Mr Hanson, but when you get rational responses and you put them all together, you would agree that this is an okay thing to do. The Royal North Shore Hospital has very similar presentations to Canberra Hospital. About a quarter of its presentations are paediatric patients. It probably sees between 55,000 and 65,000 presentations a year, and it implemented a paediatric treatment area designated alongside its emergency department. So, yes, I went to the election thinking that was a good idea for Canberra, and I also sent it to the commonwealth government and asked if they would help fund it, and I got them to agree to $5 million. That is a good outcome.
The paediatric emergency department will start construction later this year. Of all the complaints I get about the emergency department, most of them are not about timeliness; many of them are about parents wanting their children to be treated in a child-specific area. That is what this paediatric emergency department will do, and we will be very happy to keep the Assembly informed of progress.
Just briefly, in conclusion, if the Auditor-General wants to do a report into any aspect of the healthcare system there is nothing preventing her. In fact, the Assembly cannot direct the Auditor-General. The Auditor-General, I am sure, follows debates across the ACT community. She has already done a review into a particular aspect of the emergency department and it is on her forward program, as I understand. But there is absolutely nothing to prevent—
Mr Hanson: No, it isn’t.
MS GALLAGHER: It is. It is on her forward program to come back and have a look at the work that has been done around the emergency hub, but there is nothing to stop the Auditor-General doing whatever she likes and examining whatever she likes within the ACT administration. She does not need a referral from the Assembly; she can do it herself. That is her role and those are the choices she makes in putting forward her work plan.
But in terms of the work that has been done to date, there is a lot of work and a lot of goodwill, and these programs, both successful, will continue.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella) (4.10): I rise to oppose this motion this afternoon due to the motion’s blatant disregard of the community’s sentiments on the nurse-led walk-in centre.
Again, I find myself rising to refute the opposition’s claims on government programs, this time in health. The opposition have obviously not gone out into the community and talked to the families in the ACT who have used this free service. I have, and they think it is fantastic. This is substantiated by the independent evaluation of the nurse-led ACT Health walk-in centre, showing that 80 per cent of patients reported they were very satisfied with the treatment or advice that the nurse gave them, and 84 per cent said they would definitely recommend the walk-in clinic to their family and friends.
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