Page 1801 - Week 06 - Thursday, 14 May 2015
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MR CORBELL: There is no contradiction. What I have told this place repeatedly, that the University of Canberra public hospital will comprise 140 overnight beds and 75 day beds or day spaces, is exactly the same advice that has been provided to the ABC by ACT Health. There is no difference between our two statements.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Coe.
MR COE: Minister, will you table the statement provided to the media last night that reportedly confirms that bed numbers at the hospital were cut?
MR CORBELL: As I have said, the statement does not say that. I am very happy to table it.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Coe.
MR COE: Minister, will you table, by the end of question time today, the document that will perhaps put to rest this issue of whether you have cut bed numbers at the hospital?
MR CORBELL: Yes, I will, Madam Speaker.
Hospitals—University of Canberra
MS LAWDER: My question is to the Minister for Health. Minister, in a statement released by ACT Health to the media, they conceded that the new University of Canberra day patients “would not occupy a traditional hospital bed”. The ACT Health statement says that the 75 day bed patients might have their program of treatment “in a gym, the hydrotherapy pool or consultation room”. Minister, in the new University of Canberra hospital, could a hospital bed be a piece of gym equipment, a swimming pool or a chair in a consultation room?
MR CORBELL: A day bed or a day space is a space for treatment for rehabilitation, consistent with the role of a subacute facility. Surprise, surprise; sometimes when you are going through a course of rehabilitation you use a facility like a hydrotherapy pool. Or if you are learning to walk again you might use a gymnasium. That is exactly what the hospital is there to do.
But let us deal with this issue of capacity, which is clearly the issue of concern for those on the other side of this place. This facility will deliver the capacity for at least 215 people a day. That is what it will deliver—215 a day—because it is providing enough spaces, comprising 140 overnight beds and 75 day beds or day spaces. It is a rehabilitation hospital. It is about getting people back on their feet. It is about teaching them to walk again after a stroke or illness or surgery. It is about helping people recover from accident and injury. That is its purpose.
The advice that has been given by ACT Health is no different from the advice that I have given repeatedly in this place. It is no different from the advice that has been given by my predecessor in this place over the past two years. What is extraordinary about those opposite is that they cite a statement from ACT Health as proof when they have not even seen it.
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