Page 640 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 February 2020
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
One of the problems people like me have is that people such as members of parliament, police and staffers of all varieties are constantly insisting that I go to hospital for one thing or another. The time I broke my arm I just thought it was a bit sore and kept carrying on, doing my job. Sure, a bunch of naggy nags insisted and kept telling me to go and get it checked out. But I am tough. Anyway, it turned out the naggy nags were right. It was one lunchtime at a school graduation ceremony in my electorate. The then member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann, had one of her staff abduct me and take me to a walk-in centre. The nurse practitioner took one look at me, politely refrained from calling me an idiot and got me the treatment I needed.
Another time I was at bootcamp, maintaining my amazing sexy figure. This was years ago, before former opposition leader Mr Hanson and former Deputy Chief Minister Mr Corbell joined. I was there, maintaining my amazing sexy figure, and I was sitting on the grass and a bee stung me—thankfully nowhere near what rhymes with grass. Of course, I am allergic. Because they were not there—former opposition leader Mr Hanson and former Deputy Chief Minister Mr Corbell—they could not race me to the nurse-led walk-in centre. But I got there anyway.
The amazing nurse practitioner that day drew a ring around the sting and insisted that if the swelling got bigger or moved outside that line I should go back. She was not expecting me to be back in less than 20 minutes. But there I was, and it was like we were old friends. The treatment was fast, compassionate and professional.
If you reckon that story was grouse, this next one is amazing—almost as amazing as the treatment Canberrans get every day at our nurse-led walk-in centres. Late last year I had the honour of going to the opening of our brand-new Weston Creek walk-in centre, the fourth opened by this government. This is a great example of the commitment to service delivery this government has shown to the people of Weston Creek and the Molonglo Valley.
We know that the community have welcomed this new service, with 2,045 presentations from 13 December 2019—yes, December last year—to the end of January this year. Whilst a federal Liberal government keeps putting the cost of seeing a GP up and up, including cutting bulk-billing incentives by 34 per cent in the ACT at the start of this year, ACT Labor is ensuring that everyone can get affordable health care when they need it.
Back to the opening of this wonderful walk-in centre: I am there and boom! I have an asthma attack—not so much “boom” as “wheeze, wheeze, cough, cough, cannot breathe”. Anyway, I am at the official opening and doing my best not to faint or upstage the important proceedings that are going on because everyone knows how much I hate upstaging important official proceedings. One of the amazingly, lovely nurse practitioners who works in the walk-in-centre—I will not say her name or name check her because I am pretty sure she would be very embarrassed—spots what is going on very quickly, grabs me and takes me out of the line of sight of everyone important. They take me into a treatment room, sort out my asthma attack and make sure I am better before they even attempt to let me go.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video