Page 2139 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 5 June 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Sometimes it is suggested that it might be built on the Calvary Hospital site or elsewhere. The former director-general of Health advised that the indicative cost for a project such as a new north side hospital would be approximately $250 million. The current director-general of Health advised the minister in May 2018 that there would be a strategic business case delivered in the 2019-20 budget to address the issue of a new north side hospital. I am sure you have noticed, Madam Assistant Speaker, that that strategic business case is not in the budget. So we do not know how the minister is going to go about planning for a new north side hospital.
We also need to plan for replacing our community health facilities, as they are growing old. The ACT government and this health minister are doing very little in this space, even though they know that some community health facilities are reaching the end of their life. We have had the saga of the hydrotherapy pool, which I do not need to repeat here. But there were myriad misleading public statements and on-again, off-again intentions and wrong assumptions that led to a great deal of uncertainty in an important community which depends upon the hydrotherapy pool. It was only because of intense pressure brought about by the public that the government finally started to listen. But I think it has only learned the lesson in relation to the hydrotherapy pool; it has not learned the lesson in relation to the wider health infrastructure that we have in the ACT.
Is important that we have a coherent, rational, clear and transparent policy in relation to what to do with our infrastructure. The case of the electrical switchboard that tripled in cost is an important indicator of what we need to do. It is important that we have a rational process for dealing with infrastructure and that we actually know what is out there, what needs to be done, because if every refurbishment and bringing up to date that happens at the Canberra Hospital or at Calvary Hospital, for instance, blows out by three times and the project life extends for a year or more, then there is a problem we need to know about and we need to perhaps have a different strategy for dealing with.
The problem we have at the moment is that it is a piecemeal approach, a bandaid approach. We are seeing ACT Health and the ACT taxpayer bleeding money without a whole-of-government holistic approach to what health infrastructure should look like. It is time for the minister to develop a strategic master plan for health infrastructure. It is time for this minister to advise the Assembly and the Canberra community exactly how much it will cost to replace our ageing health infrastructure. The alternative is for this government to continue an ad hoc bandaid approach to infrastructure which is failing to meet the community’s needs and risks needlessly wasting taxpayers’ money and time.
In 1990 the ACT government had to close the Royal Canberra Hospital because the commonwealth government, in wanting to hand over to the ACT, had failed to upgrade its infrastructure and it had become too costly to maintain. We should be learning the lessons of the past and making sure we do not put our health infrastructure in a situation where it goes unrepaired until it becomes unrepairable. The federal government should have turned its mind to the Royal Canberra Hospital in the years before the run-up to self-government, and perhaps the ACT’s alliance government would have made a different decision about its closure.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video