Page 4233 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 20 November 1990
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As to the second part of the question, I suppose it is no different from the general proposition that Mr Stevenson takes a salary which he perhaps thinks he should not take because he did say that if there was any increase he would not take it. There is a bit of an ambivalence there on Mr Stevenson,s part; he can take some, but not all. Perhaps he might like to donate his salary to small business so that they can pick up some of their losses in taxes through that course of action.
Woden Valley Hospital
MRS GRASSBY: My question is to Mr Humphries, the Minister for Health, Education and the Arts. What is the Government doing to relieve the increased suffering to cancer patients at the Woden Valley Hospital caused by the lack of car parking now that the car parks are filled with construction work site buildings? You obviously have not been out there to see it.
MR HUMPHRIES: I have been to see the work there, Mrs Grassby. The question is a rather curious one, but that is not surprising perhaps. I do not consider there to be a major problem in the area of car parking for any patients, cancer sufferers or otherwise, at the new principal hospital site. Obviously there will be disadvantages of small kinds, inconveniences of small kinds, while work is going on at the site, but it may come as a great surprise and shock to Mrs Grassby to discover that this is not the first hospital in the history of Australia or the world which has been upgraded and which necessitates some construction work to go on.
It is impossible to avoid the implications of such improvements in the public hospital system, which implications, of course, include some minor inconveniences. I would certainly hope that the hospital takes due account of the need for seriously ill patients to have access to car parking facilities. I am quite confident that they have looked at that question already and will continue to keep it under consideration and that Mrs Grassby,s concerns are not well founded.
MRS GRASSBY: I ask a supplementary question. Do I have it from the Minister then, Mr Speaker, that he will make sure that there is adequate car parking for very ill patients who have to attend the clinic for cancer treatment?
MR HUMPHRIES: I am not quite sure how it is that such patients are sufficiently well to be able to drive their cars but too ill to be able to walk from where their cars are parked to the hospital. Nonetheless, if Mrs Grassby has a concern I am happy to address it by looking at what provisions are being made in the hospital system already.
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