Page 1077 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 April 1994
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MR HUMPHRIES: Will he fully utilise the health care capacity of the private sector and voluntary organisations? There is a problem with morale, Chief Minister - a very serious problem. Nobody is attacking those workers. What we are attacking is a system which lets those workers down. That is what we are talking about. You only have to have a cursory look through this hotline report to realise that there are many workers who are bitterly unhappy and who feel desperately in need of some support.
Let me conclude by saying that, the Liberals, despite Mr Connolly's suggestions, are not intent on taking points. We are prepared to support positive changes in the health system. If those changes are made we will, as Mrs Carnell did this morning, support them fully and properly because we have an overriding concern, and that is to make Canberra's health system work better.
MR STEVENSON (4.07): I wish to briefly raise what I consider to be a most important point. As we know, the overwhelming majority of people in the ACT were against the closure of the Royal Canberra Hospital. Notwithstanding that, it was closed, and when the Labor Party had the power to reopen it they failed to do so. Since that time the situation has become worse for health in the ACT. We have over 3,500 people waiting for a bed. We have a closed Royal Canberra Hospital. We have an increasing population, and the time will soon come when we will need another hospital.
Canberra's hospital should never have been closed. It is one of the most ideal sites in the world for a hospital. One of the big things about getting well is an environment that is conducive to that, and Royal Canberra Hospital had that. I remember going there many years ago to pull out someone who needed care. I looked at the view and thought, "At least they have a restful view". That would do a great deal to help someone get well. It is a very important factor of health. The Royal Canberra Hospital had it. It did not have traffic going past all the time, as other hospitals do. It is unfortunate that we ever allowed it to be closed. I, for one, would reopen it.
MR BERRY (4.09): I am not going to speak for too long, because everything has been said before and I would only be repeating much of what I have said before. Whilst I would have been happy to be the person in this place to withstand the constant whining and whingeing of the Liberal Party - the same old cracked record - unfortunately I am not. Again unfortunately, my ministerial colleague Mr Connolly is now going to be apparently subjected to the same old cracked record. I think that is a shame, because much of that which the Liberals bleat about is being withstood by their Liberal colleagues in other States. I have heard the Minister in New South Wales say, "We do not treat beds here". I just hope that Mr Connolly, with his magic wand, is going to be able to find the right injection to make beds better, because Mrs Carnell has this infatuation with treating beds and having lots of beds. As Mr Connolly will say over and over again, I am sure, the health system treats people, and it treats lots more of them these days than it did in the past, and with less resources. That is because it is becoming more efficient.
Politicians will continue to weep about the health system because that is all they can find to do. They cannot come up with facts. Mrs Carnell has never come up with anything particularly relevant in the debate. She just weeps and whines about matters which have not, for any practical purposes, offered anything useful for the Government.
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