Page 2757 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 13 August 2019
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experiences that people have readily shared about the treatment that they have received there. For the past five years, the Belconnen walk-in centre has been providing that outstanding care. I am so pleased to see that this budget will deliver even more of these excellent centres.
A health system is all about improving our quality of life. For those with life-threatening illness, that might mean palliative care. I am proud of the work the end of life choices inquiry did in this space. The government are acting on our recommendations to improve the provision of palliative care in the ACT.
The budget includes $1.66 million over three years to fund the inspired program, which sees nurse practitioners providing specialist care in residential aged-care facilities. Aged-care staff are actively supported to work with residents to make individual plans for the end of their lives. This is in addition to last year’s commitment to expand Clare Holland House, with eight to 12 new beds, and to provide better administrative and clinical support spaces. These are the measures that will help deliver the best care to Canberrans who are at the end of their life and to support them and their families to navigate this complicated time.
Madam Assistant Speaker, I, you and plenty of other people in this place have spoken before about how important reproductive and sexual health is to our overall health and wellbeing. It is great news that from July this year Canberrans have been able to seek medical abortions from their local GP or telehealth provider. This move has meant more choice and better access to safe and affordable abortions.
The ACT government has been a leader in abortion law reform, but there is room for other improvements in areas of health policy, particularly when it comes to sexually transmitted infections and blood-borne viruses. Worryingly, the rates of these diseases are going up, not down. A number of groups across the ACT are, as we discussed earlier this year, already doing a tremendous job in improving awareness, providing testing and supporting Canberrans to be sexually healthy. But we can do more work in this space. I look forward to seeing the government’s progress as it develops a framework for a model to provide even better care, smash the stigma and improve sexual health outcomes.
Better health means a better quality of life. It means more time with our families and friends. It means more time doing what we love. It means more time enjoying our beautiful city. This budget is about funding high quality public health care so that we all can do exactly that.
We are funding expansions of our hospitals, our specialist services and our community walk-in centres so that Canberrans can enjoy outstanding health care at every level close to home. We are investing in our doctors, our nurses and our allied healthcare workers because we all know that these people are the backbone of our health system.
I am proud to be part of the government that is delivering the investments we need to futureproof our health system so that it can keep pace with our growing city and keep us healthy.
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