Page 2727 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 13 August 2019
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It is abundantly clear that the Canberra Hospital hydrotherapy pool is at the end of its life. The ACT government has continued to invest in this ageing asset for several years to ensure it could continue to be accessed by those who benefit from it and until a replacement was available at UCH.
The pool is no longer up to standard, does not fit the design of a contemporary hydrotherapy pool and is not sustainable to maintain into the future. To quote the Nous report:
… representatives of Canberra Health Services have indicated that the risk to personnel safety is unacceptable and is not one that the organisation can continue to carry.
In line with recommendation 1, the ACT Health Directorate held a briefing for Arthritis ACT members and users of the Canberra Hospital hydrotherapy pool on 7 August 2019 to present the Nous report and enable Canberra Health Services to directly outline their concerns about the current condition and safety issues with the pool.
The presentation provided the opportunity to explain the infrastructure and safety issues in detail. Arthritis ACT’s members and users of the pool were able to ask questions and have their concerns heard by me and senior executives from the ACT Health Directorate and Canberra Health Services. The briefing aimed to get everyone on the same page about the current state of the Canberra Hospital hydrotherapy pool and the risks involved in keeping it open. To this end, members of the Legislative Assembly who had previously expressed an interest in this matter were invited and they also had the opportunity to ask questions. Unfortunately, those MLAs who attended the briefing have continued to question the information provided by public servants, including regarding work health and safety.
I note that I had the opportunity to speak with one of the maintenance workers for the TCH pool after the briefing last week. I was pleased to hear that he does not consider himself to be at risk in maintaining the pool, as workers wear a harness and monitoring devices while in the plant room to ensure that if something goes wrong it will become quickly apparent and a swift response will be facilitated. While these are sensible precautionary measures, the fact that they are necessary does not speak to a safe working environment. Canberra Health Services has concluded that this risk is not sustainable, even with mitigation in place, and the Nous report has supported this position. It is hard to see how anyone in this place could take a different view. The present risks are not isolated to the pool’s infrastructure.
The Nous report outlines risks associated with the current supervision arrangements and the funding agreement with Arthritis ACT. Recommendation 2 of the report is:
ACT Health Directorate should immediately conduct a review of the funding agreement with Arthritis ACT, with a view to constructively resolve the set of issues identified within it.
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