Page 3390 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 11 October 1994
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The Minister went on to say:
The move to reopen those 24 beds will immediately bring us up to some 600 beds in Woden Valley Hospital.
Finally, the Minister stated:
As I say, 24 are coming on stream immediately.
I ask the Minister: Did these beds come on stream, as promised?
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, I will get a full breakdown from the department and provide it to Mrs Carnell later in the day. My recollection, from the last look I had, was that the number as of yesterday, or a couple of days ago, was of the order of 587 to 585; we have about 16 to go to get to our 600. We have had some difficulties in recruiting staff. The money is there, as any doctors would tell you. We have been putting the money out there. We have been seeking to recruit nursing staff, and we have been having difficulty getting them.
Mrs Carnell, in a rather breathless press release on the weekend, put out a statement saying that there were a thousand beds under the Liberals and that there are only 700 now under Labor. In fact, there are something like 780-odd operating now. She keeps halving Calvary, for some reason. I do not know why she does not realise that there are public beds at Calvary - considerably more. It is true, though, that there were more beds when the Liberals were in government, until this bloke shut a hospital down. That is the fact. For four years the disruption and the chaos of that process and the rebuilding of Woden Valley Hospital have been at the forefront of our efforts. It has been a difficult four years for ACT Health. We are coming to the end of that rebuilding process at Woden Valley, when it will cease to be a building site. We do expect to have the numbers of beds at 600. As I say, it is some 15 or 16 off that now, as at the last information that I had. I will get a breakdown of where chops and changes that have occurred are, and I will give you documentation showing where we have sought to advertise to get the additional nursing staff for those positions.
One thing I can say, Madam Speaker, is that, if any future Assembly were to adopt the absurd tactics of Mrs Carnell's counterbudget and slash $30m off the ACT health system - - -
Ms Follett: Thirty-one million.
MR CONNOLLY: It is $31m; the Chief Minister corrects me. If we were to slash over $30m off the ACT hospital system, which is what Mrs Carnell is on the public record as wanting to do, we certainly would not have our 600 beds at Woden Valley Hospital; we would have chaos.
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