Page 2749 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 13 August 2019
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take pressure off our hospitals. I am proud to say that as part of this year’s budget the ACT government are delivering on our promise for a new nurse-led walk-in centre for the inner north, completing the network of five nurse-led walk-in centres across the ACT. The new $9.8 million walk-in centre will be collocated at the Dickson Community Health Centre, in the Dickson group centre, and near the new light rail transport route, making it easy and convenient to access.
It is an investment that will see the existing community health centre upgraded, with four treatment rooms added for the new walk-in centre, within the building’s existing footprint, thus complementing the current services provided at the centre, which include maternal and child health services and podiatry. With Canberra’s fourth walk-in centre in Weston Creek due to open later this year, the budget also delivers $10.5 million over four years to fund its operations.
Madam Assistant Speaker, another key part of making sure our healthcare system is set up to provide the best possible care to our community is ensuring that we have the digital infrastructure in place to position the ACT to take advantage of new technologies and advances in health care into the future. That is exactly what the government is doing through this budget, with a $106 million investment over eight years to introduce a new digital health record across the public health system.
The new digital health record will be centred on the person rather than focused around clinical speciality or treatment location. It will give our doctors, nurses and other health professionals access to the most up to date patient information, enabling them to make more timely and accurate decisions at the point of care. It is a major investment that follows the release of the ACT’s new digital health strategy earlier this year and the $41 million delivered in last year’s budget to upgrade ICT systems and to introduce new technology initiatives to make clinical care easier and more efficient.
It is funding that adds to the investments that the government is making in state of the art health infrastructure, such as the SPIRE project, that will truly transform our public health system into the future. In addition to investing in building and improving health infrastructure, the 2019-20 budget invests in more services and specialists to keep people out of hospital, reduce waiting times, treat people on waiting lists and give Canberrans access to more timely care.
We are expanding existing services at Canberra Hospital to keep up with demand. This includes $4.6 million for more doctors at the Canberra Hospital’s emergency department to help reduce waiting times and to respond to increasing demand; $14.7 million to deliver another interventional radiology suite to provide state of the art care for cancer and stroke patients, and funding new and upgraded MRIs; and $7.9 million to boost pharmacy services so that people who are treated at the Canberra Hospital and the University of Canberra Hospital can get access to their medications more quickly and easily.
We are making significant investments in specialist services supporting Canberrans with chronic and ongoing conditions and expanding capacity in outpatient services at Canberra Hospital. This includes $250,000 to undertake a feasibility study into
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