Page 4054 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 24 October 1990
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As I indicated on the Pru Goward show the other day, in-patient services will continue to be provided from within existing buildings or within buildings that are going to be built on the site. This will mean that in-patients - could I have some order, Mr Speaker?
Mr Moore: Mr Speaker, Mr Stevenson was trying to clarify with me whether it was a ministerial statement or not.
Mr Stevenson: I had been out for a moment or two. I thought the clock might be wrong.
Mr Moore: I said, "Yes it is, but they are using question time to make it".
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Moore! Please proceed, Mr Humphries.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, this will mean that in-patients will not need to be taken to and from any temporary building. Out-patient services and administration only will be provided from the temporary accommodation. The medical services working group, which is the overall representative group of the medical profession rather than the Royal Canberra Hospital Medical Staff Committee, has indicated that no service will be transferred if there is any risk to patient safety.
Ambulance Officers
MR BERRY: My question is directed to the Minister for Health, Mr Humphries, and relates to the requirement for all ACT ambulance officers to hold advanced life support qualifications. Since it will take the recently announced seven new recruits four years to fully qualify as ACT ambulance officers, what will the Minister do to address the shortage of qualified staff in the meantime?
MR HUMPHRIES: Again I can only say to Mr Berry that the issues that he has raised are not new issues. They came to the attention of the authorities quite some time ago. I gather that they must have come to his attention while he was Minister, although I cannot be terribly sure, and they have come to my attention while I have been Minister. Unlike Mr Berry, I am doing something about them.
As for the staff who have been trained and who are coming on stream in the ACT, even if they are discounted, even if one ignores those newly trained and recruited staff, there are still more officers in the ACT Ambulance Service under this Minister than there were under that former Minister across the chamber. There are still more ambulance officers than there were at that time.
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