Page 2155 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 2 August 2022
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Society. Muslim Sisters also got funding to provide those programs.
MR BRADDOCK: Minister, will the recommissioning of the Gungahlin pool provide the opportunity for the government to reconsider providing permanent funding in this space?
MS BERRY: Those are considerations that the government will consider. They will be announced as future arrangements within the government’s budget processes.
MS CLAY: Minister, what other aquatic programs might be on offer when that pool is operational again?
MS BERRY: The normal aquatic programs that occur at that pool, once it is opened. The 50-metre pool is scheduled for reopening this month. The 25-metre programs pool has been reopened, with the repairs completed. We have also been working on upgrades to ensure that there is better lighting and doing acoustics work at the pool. We had feedback from users of the pool, particularly water polo clubs, that the pool was quite a noisy space and that the lights were not appropriate for their sport. We have made upgrades to put better lighting in so that it works better for those aquatic activities. We will also be working with acoustic engineers to make sure that that pool can work better for aquatic activities like water polo.
Hospitals—staffing
MS CASTLEY: My question is to the Minister for Health. The Canberra Times reported on 31 July 2022 that corridor nursing has become common practice at Canberra Hospital. Nurses went on to say that many senior staff had left or cut back their hours, meaning that junior nurses had to undertake work they previously would not have to do until they had been working in the profession for several years. This included working in the resuscitation bay of the emergency department. Minister, how common is it for junior nurses to work in the resuscitation bay in Canberra Hospital?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I will take the detail of that question on notice.
MS CASTLEY: How many senior nursing staff have left the emergency department team?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I will take the question on notice, but I do want to assure the Assembly that, while there are obviously some skills mix challenges right across the health services in the ACT, as there are across the country at the moment, the average tenure for nurses working in the emergency department at the end of May 2022 was 5.68 years and, for the period from July 2020 to 25 May 2022, the headcount for nursing staff in the emergency department at Canberra Hospital, which was the subject, I think, of the question—I do not have the number for Calvary—showed an increase of 36.8 per cent in nursing staff in the ED. So there has been a significant increase in the number of nursing staff recruited. Our hospital system and healthcare workforce have been under significant pressure, as have every hospital and healthcare workforce right across the country and, indeed, in many other countries
as well.
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