Page 2562 - Week 08 - Thursday, 14 August 2014
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The University of Canberra public hospital will provide a greater range of patient care in north Canberra along with training and research opportunities integrated with the University of Canberra. The nurses teaching and studying at the University of Canberra faculty of health and other health-related courses at the university will all benefit from the proximity of the new hospital.
The sports medicine courses at UC are also benefiting from the new UC sports commons and the concentration of professional and community sports facilities as part of an overall intensification of health infrastructure on the campus that includes the new super clinic. The University of Canberra public hospital will also work closely with staff and researchers based at the nearby Calvary hospital and will allow patients to move between the hospitals as their needs for different services require. The hospital will become another major employer in north Canberra, and the capital works will maintain jobs in the construction industries.
I might also add that this government’s vision of better medical services in Belconnen is enhanced by faster response times from the recently completed ambulance station at Charnwood and funding in this budget for the new $20.9 million ambulance and fire station being built in Aranda. Construction is expected to start in late 2014 and be completed in mid-2016. I commend this upgrading of our health facilities and services in Belconnen included in this budget to the Assembly.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Minister for Health, Minister for Higher Education and Minister for Regional Development) (11.18): I welcome the opportunity to talk about this part of the 2014-15 budget. As we know, Canberrans’ number one issue is access to good, high-quality healthcare. Overall in the ACT we are exceptionally lucky to have such wonderful services and staff that operate 365 days a year to deliver that high-level care to people in the ACT.
This budget continues to grow the health expenditure, as our budgets have done in years previous. We are continuing to invest over the forward estimates with growth and expected growth across the outyears. The 2014-15 budget provides $1.39 billion across both areas, the Local Hospital Network and the ACT Health Directorate, in annual and recurrent funding. It also includes new capital funding of $122 million over four years. This new capital allocation takes the health infrastructure program to the largest capital program delivered in the ACT, a grand total of $877 million. The budget also includes growth and new initiative funding of just under $37 million or $164 million across the four years. This funding provides for an additional 129 full-time equivalent positions for ACT Health across those initiatives, and I will run through a few of them now.
As I said yesterday, at the Belconnen Community Health Centre there are additional staff in the walk-in centre. This is part of the complete reconfiguration of the health system where we are increasingly moving services out into the community close to where people live. The Belconnen Community Health Centre includes breast screening, aged care and rehab, pathology collection in time, community mental health, medical outpatients. Renal care is also provided there. Of course, the recent opening of the walk-in centre at Belconnen Community Health Centre is proving to be very popular in Belconnen.
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