Page 2806 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 12 August 2015
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Not agreed by the government. And the reason is that in attempt to cover up the fact that this government has cut 60 beds from the planned hospital Mr Corbell was making it up on the fly. They denied that there were any bed cuts. Then they said there were going to be 75 bed spaces. In some correspondence, in statements provided, they said that that included treatment rooms, consult rooms. Then in answers to questions on notices they said it does not include the consult rooms. They said the hydrotherapy pool was a bed.
Then we went through estimates—and it was bizarre for anyone that was there—where essentially what Mr Corbell said was that anywhere that someone was treated constituted a bed. So if you are treated somewhere it is a bed. The staff were looking anywhere they could but at the minister. It was embarrassing for everybody because everybody knows—and indeed I talk to staff: staff talk to me regularly; they roll their eyes—what has happened. The 200 beds were cut to 140. There was this whole business that really there are these extra 75 beds, which are a hydrotherapy pool and gym equipment. Sometimes they say it is a consult room, sometimes they say it is not a consult room—depending which day it is and which answer to a question on notice it is. The reality is that because of the strain and stress on this budget this government is not fulfilling its promises.
We heard it today in Mr Coe’s motion about local shops. This government had promised to upgrade local shops and had broken its promise. And we are seeing it in health. This government promised to build a 200-bed hospital and broke that promise and has been trying to cover it up. It is quite outrageous. I again call on this government to fulfil its promise, not to have this breach of trust, and to reinstate the 60 beds that it has cut from the University of Canberra hospital.
Even in the government’s own documents, the size of the hospital has been reduced from 26,770 square metres to 20,745—22 per cent smaller. It is a reduction in the size; it is a reduction in the beds; it is a broken promise by this minister. If the health system were not at capacity, if the health system was all tickety-boo, perhaps we could say that we could afford not to build the full, promised beds. But clearly that is not the case. What we do know is that this is a hospital system that is bursting at the seams.
Dr Hall, who is head of the emergency department, for those who are unaware, has made it very clear that the levels of bed occupancy are unsafe. Let me quote from the ABC on 1 September:
A senior staff member at the Canberra Hospital has spoken out, saying current patient numbers are “unsafe” and “unsustainable”.
The Australian Medical Association recommends that hospitals run at an 85 per cent bed occupancy rate for efficient and safe practice.
But according to Canberra Hospital data, the facility has averaged about a 95 per cent capacity so far this year.
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