Page 3645 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Humphries says that I have changed the criteria. When I asked the secretary of my department, "When did we start counting them? Are they new? Is this something different?", the advice I got, which I read to you, is that the 20 nursing home beds at Calvary have always been included in a count of available beds at the hospital. My understanding is that members of my office have contacted Mr Dyer, and that is confirmed from Calvary Hospital. I can do no more, Madam Speaker, when asked a question of fact, than answer that question honestly and to the best of my ability, based on the advice of my officials. If that answer does not suit Mrs Carnell and Mr Humphries, there is little more that I can do.
MR KAINE: I have a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Minister, on page 26 of the annual report where it gives the number of beds available at Calvary as 172, there are two footnotes. One in connection with in-patient activities statistics at Calvary Public Hospital says that the figure "excludes nursing home beds (20 beds)". In other words, they are not counted as part of the in-patient activities statistics. Lower down the page there is one for combined Woden Valley and Calvary public hospitals, where the number of available beds is given as 732, and, again, there is a footnote that says "Calvary Public Hospital excludes nursing home beds (20 beds)". That seems to contradict your assertion that your in-patient activities statistics have always included them. Your own annual report specifically excludes them. It does not list them separately; it says they are excluded. That being the case, I suggest that you again ask your departmental secretary for further advice. Furthermore, if it is proper to include the 20 nursing home beds at Calvary in order to arrive at the total number of available hospital beds, why is it not all right to include all of those at Jindalee, which are exactly the same kind of beds?
Mr Berry: No, they are not. That is why you never could manage it.
MR KAINE: They are nursing home beds, Mr Berry - and I asked Mr Connolly the question, not you.
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, as Mr Berry said, no, they are not, because at Jindalee we are going through the exercise of getting them as Commonwealth funded nursing home beds. It has been abundantly clear that the beds at Calvary will never be Commonwealth funded, and never have been Commonwealth funded, nursing home beds; they have always been regarded as hospital beds, and we have to cope with them in those ways. Again, I re-read the answer. It seems that my answer and Mr Kaine's supplementary question are - - -
Mr Kaine: This is an update on this morning's advice.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MR CONNOLLY: Question asked and answered. The reason they are reported separately in the annual report is that due to the long-stay characteristics of these patients they would disproportionately distort the hospital's average length of stay indicators. We do asterisk that and say, "Oh, but, by the way, we also have these 20 other beds".
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .