Page 1170 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Civic Health Centre
MRS CARNELL: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Health, Mr Connolly. The number of doctors at the Civic Health Centre has decreased from four-and-a-half to only two. A nurse is available to patients only in the morning and no female doctor is on staff. The Minister was recently quoted as saying that patients should not use hospital casualty departments for minor or routine problems and should instead use their local health centres. Minister, it now takes as much as a week to get an appointment at the Civic Health Centre, while new patients are no longer being accepted. Does the Minister think this is an appropriate level of service to the predominantly elderly patients who use the Civic Health Centre, and where does he think patients will go if he says that they should not attend the accident and emergency part of the hospital and if they cannot get into the health centre?
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, nothing much has changed. We have the same carping, whingeing little questions from the Leader of the Opposition on health issues.
Mrs Carnell: People actually care about this.
MR CONNOLLY: As indeed they should. Any parliament in Australia can do this sort of thing. I see that the Independents did it to your Minister for Health in the New South Wales Parliament last night fairly comprehensively by passing a motion to do in Mr Phillips for exactly the sort of thing that you are carping about.
Madam Speaker, I did make the point that people who are concerned about accident and emergency waiting lists, in many cases, would be better served in attending some of the 24-hour clinics in Canberra. It is clear, as I think Professor Gatenby made the point when he was interviewed about his appointment as the first professor of the clinical school, that many people in Canberra will attend accident and emergency for a service which people in New South Wales would never dream of going to accident and emergency for. They will be seen at A and E, but they may have to wait. The health centres, of course, have long provided a very useful service in the ACT. They are not 24-hour clinics. There are - - -
Mrs Carnell: They cannot get in even during the week.
MR CONNOLLY: In the case of Civic, I know of at least one bulkbilling clinic in the city area at which an appointment is easily able to be obtained; so there are options, Madam Speaker. I understand that a somewhat long running industrial matter with the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Association has delayed the filling of some positions of salaried doctors in the community health centres. I understand that that matter was very close to resolution when the changes occurred in the portfolio, and I hope that it will be rapidly resolved so that there will be some additional appointments. Mrs Carnell is the constant carper about health problems who constantly says that people should look to the private sector for alternatives. I would not urge them to go to doctors who do not bulkbill; but there are doctors in the city area who do bulkbill, providing that community based alternative to full fee charging doctors. People do have that choice.
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