Page 1470 - Week 05 - Thursday, 12 May 1994
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MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Mrs Carnell, I am sure that you are well aware of the standing order on supplementary questions.
MRS CARNELL: Yes.
MADAM SPEAKER: Would you wind up and ask the question.
MRS CARNELL: It is exactly the same question.
MADAM SPEAKER: Ask the question. Just get to the point.
MRS CARNELL: Yes; okay. Minister, your own Arthur Andersen report shows that the cost per patient is $3,200 at Woden Valley Hospital. The national metropolitan hospital costing is $2,600. Even on ACT Health's abacus that means that there is a difference of $600 per patient. That means that every out of State patient admitted costs us an extra $600. Do you now accept and admit that the real cost or the real loss to the ACT when treating out of State patients is $7m a year, due to the Medicare agreement?
MR CONNOLLY: It is true that we have a higher than average cost level at Woden Valley Hospital. This Government is addressing that. If we can get that costing down it will cost us less for New South Wales patients or ACT patients. There is a net cost for ACT patients as well. As I said in my first answer, going down your logical train of thought, to grace it with that title, the best solution is to shut the hospital down; or, perhaps, when I go up and talk with Ron Phillips in a couple of weeks I will say, "Mr Phillips, I am terribly sorry, but I have taken the advice of the ACT Liberal Party and we are going to put a fence up at the border. We will not accept any New South Wales patients because they cost us money".
Madam Speaker, this is the Liberal Party carping and whingeing about health again. There is nothing constructive; there are no suggestions for reform, no suggestions for sensible improvement; there is just whingeing - unless we take the off-the-cuff approach yesterday when they were asked by a journalist, "Well, what should you do?". The reply was, "Oh, well, we might build another hospital, a public/private hospital". Madam Speaker, we are spending $170m upgrading Woden Valley Hospital. It will be one of the most modern hospitals in Australia. We will have a better infrastructure and a more modern hospital, a lower age hospital, than anywhere else in Australia. We are spending $170m of public money, and what is Mrs Carnell's solution? Build another one.
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