Page 1074 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 April 1994
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Case-mix funding clearly is a very interesting development. I am interested in Health's briefing on it. I have just read some reports that appeared in some professional journals on how it appears to be working in Victoria. It appears to be working quite well. There are some concerns from some areas of the health profession.
MADAM SPEAKER: Minister, your time has expired.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.57): Madam Speaker, although Mr Connolly was doing his duty and getting stuck into the Opposition, I must say that I found some of the things that he said quite comforting, even reassuring. I think that Mr Connolly represents a breath of fresh air, and there are a couple of points I will make to illustrate that comment. I heard Mr Connolly - perhaps he did not say it quite so explicitly as he might have said it - allude to the fact that the hospice on Acton Peninsula will cost the Government more than the hospice on the Calvary site would cost. That is a fairly significant point that we on this side of the chamber have made since the beginning of the debate about the hospice, and Mr Connolly made a remark that confirmed that view.
I do not think that Mr Berry ever made that point in the course of the debate on the hospice. Although the figures were presented to him on a platter time and time again in this place and he was asked to confirm the simple and obvious fact that this was so, he was unable to do so on those occasions. I think it is healthier all round that we now have a concession that that is the case. I do not hold that against Mr Connolly. It is gratifying to know that those basic facts of life are going to be acknowledged and presumably taken account of when decisions are made, rather than other factors which I suspect in the past have been more important than the facts.
The other reassuring thing, of course, has been the decision Mr Connolly has made in the last few days to expand the number of obstetric beds in the ACT, and to expand them not in the government sector but in the private sector, where of course they should be. Obviously not all obstetric beds should be in the private sector; but certainly there is great room for expansion in the private sector in the ACT, where at the moment there is not a single private obstetric bed. We are the only community of any significance in this country where you cannot go to a private hospital to have a baby. We do not all necessarily want to do that, but some do, and they ought to have that choice. I note that on 23 February of this year Mr Berry said:
We have a new obstetrics block which is designed to accommodate the needs of Canberra up to the year 2000, and that does not take into account the provision of private hospital services either.
Yet we have had the announcement this morning that the number of obstetric beds in the ACT will be increased by a third, from 95 to 131.
Mrs Carnell: Who is wrong - Mr Berry or Mr Connolly?
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