Page 3522 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 September 2019
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The media reported on 14 September that Dr Di Dio stated that short-term fixes that create extra space in the emergency departments only postpone the real problem of being able to get patients out of the ED and into the hospital’s wards.
I would add that now Senator Gallagher found that 61 per cent of the buildings at the Calvary Public Hospital were approaching the end of their useful life. When she was the minister in this place in 2008, Ms Gallagher warned that we would face a health tsunami and that we needed to invest in health infrastructure. In 2012 the Labor Party promised a significant infrastructure program at the hospital; however, the government did not follow through in 2013, although a detailed proposal was developed.
The proposal was adopted by the Canberra Liberals at the 2016 election. If the government had approved the plans that it made in 2013, that project would have been finished by now. We would not be spending $400 million at the hospital on infrastructure upgrades, because essentially we would have a new hospital in the heart of the campus. If we had built what Katy Gallagher promised in 2012 and planned for in 2013, we would not be having this conversation today. We would have beds to implement the winter bed strategy that was needed in May, not July.
In 2015 there was a proposal to spend $1.2 billion on refurbishing the Canberra Hospital campus. KPMG prepared a business case for ACT Health, saying that demand for beds at the hospital was outstripping supply and the current infrastructure would not be able to deal with increased capacity needs. The government did not proceed with this proposal. Instead, the government announced the UMAHA program in 2016-17, at a cost of $95 million. The replacement of the electrical switchboard in buildings 1 and 2 was part of that program. It was envisaged that it would cost $14 million, but the incoming minister brief that I recently received shows that that has now blown out to $51 million of a $95 million project. As well as that, no work would have been done on the switchboard if it had not been for the April 2017 fire.
At the last minute before the last election, the government decided that it would build something called SPIRE. I know that there are glossy brochures; I noticed the minister had one in her folder and I am sure she will spruik from it in her remarks. We do not know what SPIRE will cost, but we do know that the delays caused by this government not investing in infrastructure mean that we will not get the facilities that we need until 2022, whereas we should be having them now.
In the time available to me, I will emphasise that what this motion calls on the government to do is really just be a bit more prepared than the minister was yesterday in question time. It gives her until the last sitting day of this year to put forward to the Assembly and report to the Assembly progress on SPIRE—not when it is going to be finished or how much it is going to cost; just tell us where they are in the process. It also calls on her to report on progress in developing other health infrastructure programs. One is the upgrade of infrastructure at Bruce. As we know, that is facing significant pressure. And there are the women’s and children’s hospital upgrades. As we have discussed in this place over a number of months, their timeliness has blown out as well, and the thing that was promised in 2019 will not be delivered until 2022. (Time expired.)
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