Page 1677 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 15 May 2019
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come to appreciate how important this is not just for older people but also for young people, for people recovering from injury, and for people to build up their strength to prepare for their surgery so that their recovery is better.
Hydrotherapy is an important element in our healthcare provision in the ACT. We are seeing a huge uptake in the number of people coming forward looking for hydrotherapy services at a time when the government is proposing to close down a facility. This motion here today is calling on the government to not close yet—I emphasise “yet”—the hydrotherapy pool at the Canberra Hospital.
I made it clear on the radio this morning when I was speaking on the ABC that I do not see a long-term future for the current hydrotherapy pool at the Canberra Hospital. The Canberra Hospital site is constrained. Eventually we will have to give up that space for other acute service. I want to make it very clear: this motion does not call for the hospital to keep that hydrotherapy pool open indefinitely; it is asking that the hydrotherapy pool be kept open to provide hydrotherapy services until we can find sufficient substitute services to service the people on the south side of Canberra.
I note that the minister has proposed an amendment, which the opposition will be looking very favourably at. One of the issues that the minister still does not understand is that, if you live in Tuggeranong or Weston Creek and you have limited mobility, a trip to the University of Canberra Public Hospital is not necessarily viable.
Over the last little while we have had a lot of on again, off again discussions about hydrotherapy. Since I became the shadow minister it has been one of the persistent issues that people have raised with me. We have been through this process a number of times here. We were told that, once we had the University of Canberra Public Hospital, we would not need a south-side facility; everyone could go to Belconnen.
What we were doing was substituting disadvantage. In the past, people who lived in my electorate, people who lived in Charnwood and Evatt—which is not in my electorate—had to travel a long way for hydrotherapy services. We are now substituting disadvantage by saying, “It would be a really good idea if everybody just went to Belconnen.”
When it became clear that that was not possible, the government agreed at the time of the opening of the University of Canberra Public Hospital that the Woden site would remain open. It has now been announced that the minister is proposing to close it by 30 June, which is what prompted this motion here today.
In the meantime, there has been a lot of backwards and forwards. I have to speak very critically about the minister in relation to the answer that she gave in estimates last year when, at the height of a fairly intense backwards and forwards about the future of the hydrotherapy pool, she successfully closed down discussion by saying that the Stromlo Leisure Centre would provide hydrotherapy facilities. That basically closed down the discussion. I was sitting there thinking, “Gee, why didn’t I know that? How come I didn’t know that?
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