Page 3115 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 16 September 2015
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There is the secure mental health facility, which this government—in actual fact, it was Minister Corbell—said they were going to build back in 2005. It was an election commitment in 2008. There was $11 million put in the budget. That is what it would cost. And we were told that it would be open, Madam Assistant Speaker—when do you think? When do you think that was going to be open? That was going to be operational in 2011. In 2011 the secure mental health facility that was promised was going to be open. Again, here we are today and we know full well that there are significant problems both in the AMC and the adult mental health facility as a result of the lack of that facility that this government, with our support, to build such a facility, failed to deliver and still failed to deliver years after it was promised.
There is the hospital car park, $20 million. Do I hear any more? It was over budget. It was 18 months late. Again, during that whole period of construction there was chaos, appallingly managed. Remember the fiasco as well in the management of parking at the Canberra Hospital with paid parking that was then removed.
The centenary hospital was $20 million over budget and months and months late in delivery. Would you believe, build a new hospital and have fewer beds in the new facility than were previously available? As a result, clinicians were saying it is unsafe, and we had women who were giving birth and were pushed out of that hospital literally four hours after giving birth. This was meant to be the new hospital that was going to make such a difference. What we saw was women being pushed out of the hospital four hours after giving birth.
What we hear is talk from this minister, from the directorate, about now limiting where women in this town can give birth based on postcode. If you happen to live in the south, you are right; if you live in the north, you are out. That is the sort of approach that this minister, Simon Corbell, as Ms Fitzharris calls him, is taking to the management of our health system.
It is not like we are getting great results, is it? You will wait longer for emergency department treatment at the Canberra Hospital than anywhere else in Australia.
In this world-class health system under “this minister, Simon Corbell” you wait longer. So our parents, our children, our friends in the emergency department are waiting longer than anywhere else in Australia. This is just not an inconvenience. If you read the medical journals, if you listen to the experts, they will tell you that particularly the delay in getting treatment from when you first arrive to when you get into a hospital bed beyond the four-hour rule, as you will often hear it referred to, has significant consequences when it comes to the clinical outcomes for those patients and can result and does result in higher mortality. We know that from the Medical Journal of Australia article, in February 2012 I think, about the experience in WA. Have a read of that one.
Elective surgery is equally a significant problem. The lack of capacity that has been built up means that this government is farming out a lot of work to the private system. Per se, I do not have a philosophical problem with that, but what has happened under this government is an ad hoc approach because of a lack of capacity that is not being well managed. I have had a significant number of complaints from surgeons with regard to that process, as we have about non-emergency surgery.
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