Page 1932 - Week 07 - Thursday, 31 May 1990
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I have instructed the Education Department to provide that information as soon as possible. I do not know exactly what the information is or exactly what difficulty there is in obtaining it, but I can assure Dr Perkins and the Leader of the Opposition that the information will be obtained as quickly as possible and, if required, supplied also to members of the Opposition.
Royal Canberra Hospital
MR JENSEN: I refer the Minister for Health to comments by a member of the Opposition, reported in the current issue of the Tuggeranong Valley View, that the closure of the Royal Canberra Hospital will seriously affect the residents of Tuggeranong. Is this the case?
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Jensen for that question. As soon as I heard him refer to someone from the Opposition stirring up trouble, I immediately thought of Mr Berry. Indeed, this is so in this case. Mr Berry's comments have displayed a fairly simple-minded logic. Apparently he thinks that, if you reduce the number of hospitals from three to two, you must be reducing the number of accident and emergency services by a third, from three to two as well, or by some other reduction that is known only to his arcane mind.
In educational terms, it is rather like a child thinking that a long, thin glass contains a greater volume than a short, fat glass, even though they both contain the same amount. I can assure the Assembly that the Government is not destroying accident and emergency services. The Government's plans will lead to implementation of the hospital services available to all the people of Canberra, and particularly the people of Tuggeranong. The irony of the article appearing in the Tuggeranong Valley View is that the people of Tuggeranong will be the big winners from this arrangement. They will have as their closest major public hospital a major trauma centre.
Mr Berry: They will share fewer emergency services.
MR HUMPHRIES: The logic of Mr Berry again is hard to comprehend. I will make some things clear about this process. First of all, the Woden Valley Hospital accident and emergency service will expand to become the major trauma centre during 1991, next year, and Royal Canberra Hospital's casualty section will close after that occurs. Calvary's casualty section will be expanded to become a comprehensive 24-hour casualty section comparable to the service currently provided in Woden Valley, and this will occur before the Royal Canberra Hospital service is closed. With the availability of two strategically located high-level facilities, the Government will enhance health delivery in the ACT.
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