Page 267 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 December 2016
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What is important to us in the long term is ensuring that Canberrans and those from the broader region get to see the Australian cricket team play at Manuka on a regular basis.
I would remind those opposite that prior to the centenary year in 2013, when I secured the Australian team to play in their first game ever in Canberra, we had never had the Australian cricket team, in 100 years, play in this city. Since I secured that agreement, we have had them here on a number of occasions, and we will have our first test match in 2018-19.
MR PARTON: You say that the agreement can be changed by mutual agreement. Did Cricket Australia simply tell you that there were no international matches here, or did you agree to it, for the summer ahead of this one?
MR BARR: The CEO, Mr Sutherland, rang me in advance of the release of Cricket Australia’s schedule for next year, advised me of the challenges and indicated that we would need to have a discussion around options. I indicated that I was interested in the long-term relationship with Cricket Australia and looked forward to what options Cricket Australia could bring forward for the territory. I think it is to our long-term benefit to have an ongoing and long-term relationship. If this line of questioning suggests that those opposite would adopt a different approach that would seek to trash our relationship with Cricket Australia then that is very disappointing.
Hospitals—discharge policy
MS LEE: My question is to the Minister for Health. Minister, on Tuesday, 13 December, in question time, you said:
… patients are not discharged from Canberra hospitals unless it is safe to do so, and that will be done on the clinical advice of doctors and nurses caring for patients in our hospitals.
Given this, do doctors and nurses caring for patients in Canberra hospitals ever receive text messages informing them of overcapacity in the hospital, notifying them of beds needed for ED patients and asking them to expedite discharges?
MS FITZHARRIS: I thank Ms Lee for the question. I am certainly aware that there is a range of communication within the hospital, as I mentioned in my answer to that question. There is constant communication between clinical teams right across the hospital about the importance of providing the highest quality of service.
On many occasions it is in the interest of patients who are waiting to be discharged at a certain time at which they would like to leave. But I do reiterate that, even if there are messages and communications within the hospital—because there may be patients in the emergency department seeking a bed in the hospital and other patients waiting in the emergency department waiting room to be seen by doctors in the emergency department—discharges will only be made if it is clinically sound. That is the decision of the clinicians in the hospital.
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