Page 624 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 February 2020
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I will come back with further detail on notice in relation to some of the specific questions that Mrs Jones has asked about access but I note that the current pool at Canberra Hospital is not particularly accessible and friendly for people with disability. If you compare it to the University of Canberra Hospital pool or some of the other more modern pools like the one at Club Mmm!, which I have used for rehabilitation, there is nothing like that for people with disability at the Canberra Hospital pool.
While I will come back with some further details about specific accessibility there are obviously also existing legal requirements in terms of accessible parking, disability parking and the like. But I will come back with further detail on notice.
MRS JONES: Minister, did you or Health officials visit the Aqua Harmony facility to assess whether it is a suitable south side alternative to the Canberra Hospital hydrotherapy pool? If not, why not?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I did not. I will take on notice whether officials did. We were working very closely with Arthritis ACT, receiving advice from them, as the experts in the hydrotherapy sessions that they deliver, and as the experts in the pool users and their members, whom they work with every single day. We were very much assured, and reassured, by their feedback that Aqua Harmony was the most appropriate alternative facility.
I am concerned that Mrs Jones and Mrs Dunne, in some of her previous comments, are unnecessarily creating anxiety by putting out there questions about accessibility and the like, whereas actually we have come to a very positive agreement with Arthritis ACT, on the advice of Arthritis ACT about what the most appropriate alternative facility would be. I am really pleased to have reached that solution. Again I emphasise that the Canberra Hospital pool actually fails to meet a number of the requirements that are of the nature that Mrs Jones is talking about.
MS CHEYNE: Minister, are you still working towards a longer term solution?
Mrs Jones: That is a very good question.
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: Thank you, Ms Cheyne, for the supplementary. It is indeed a very good question. Yes, we are working towards a longer term solution, a longer term solution that we are getting on with. I note that the opposition has made absolutely no commitment or statement in regard to whether they would do anything on this.
We had an expression of interest process for private and non-government organisations to indicate to us whether they would be interested in partnering in the delivery of a public hydrotherapy pool on Canberra’s south side, a community-based pool in response to the feedback from the community and analysis by the Nous Group last year. We have also been doing some work internally to look at what the government options might be in that regard.
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