Page 3394 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 11 October 1994
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MR CONNOLLY: Mr De Domenico, anything that you produce needs to be looked at very carefully. If I wanted to be a cheap and grubby politician, I would produce a stunt and say, "Here are 50 beds". We have about 100 of them in storage. They are sitting there; they are mattresses on wheels. What we have to talk about in a hospital system is effective available beds that are staffed - beds that have the nursing staff, the doctors and the ancillary staff to go with them.
We need to look at the number of occupied bed days; we need to look at the service in the hospital. That continues to rise, despite the fact that we do have some fewer beds than we had some time ago. As I said, we once had 1,000. The Liberals then closed a hospital. We still treat the same number of people in the system.
Mr Humphries: Where are they now?
MR CONNOLLY: A lot of them are in storage. Where they used to sit, Mr Humphries, is in that big building on Acton Peninsula that used to be a hospital. We get left with the wreckage, which we try to fix. You lot want to come again, and slash and burn. I have here the press release of Mr Humphries announcing the closure of the hospital. The great historical revisionist says that it was not the Alliance Government that closed the hospital. Mr Humphries, you might think the public of Canberra are stupid, but I tell you that they are not; they know who made the decision to close the hospital.
We are seeking to improve hospital services in the ACT. We spend more. As a government, we make the largest contribution on health in terms of per capita expenditure. We are working to get efficiencies in the system, to get more people through and to get more beds in place. I will give Mrs Carnell the information that I had a day or so ago, which was the latest breakdown on bed numbers.
Toxic Sites
MS SZUTY: Madam Speaker, my question without notice is to the Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning, Mr Wood. Recently publicity has been given to the identification of potentially toxic former sheep dip sites in Isabella Plains, Holder, Ngunnawal, Theodore and Chapman. My understanding is that these sites, which are all in newer suburbs, have been identified from aerial photographs. My question to the Minister is: Can he inform the Assembly what action is being taken to identify other potentially toxic sheep dip sites in the older areas of Canberra?
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, quite a deal is happening. It does seem strange that, after 80 years of Canberra as the national capital, it was only recently that attention was turned to the incidence of sheep dips. I think it was an early Federal politician who said that this was a good sheep station ruined.
Ms Follett: Sheep-run.
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