Page 3688 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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recklessly put up the censure motion. They have seen a discrepancy, and they have explored that discrepancy. Madam Speaker, that is why it is that I believe that today, whilst it has been a quite unpleasant exercise - I always find these things particularly unpleasant - we did - - -
Mr Connolly: It is more unpleasant when you are sitting here.
MR MOORE: I am sure that it is much more unpleasant for Mr Connolly than it is for me. Having been subject to a censure motion in the previous Assembly, I do understand that they are something that is particularly distressing. Madam Speaker, that said, I believe that this matter needs to be explored further through the Estimates Committee process.
MR BERRY (Manager of Government Business) (5.27): I rise to support my colleague Mr Connolly. One of the first things that I want to say is that I am pleased that the Independents have not been caught up in what I see - they have a different view of the world - as an ongoing campaign in the community about beds and the impact that beds have on the provision of hospital services in the Territory. If you listen to Mrs Carnell out in the community, it is as if beds are the only things that matter in a hospital. Beds, beds, beds!
Mr Humphries: You used to talk about it like that when you were Opposition spokesman on health.
MR BERRY: That is not so. Things have changed dramatically over the last few years. I see this motion of censure against my colleague Mr Connolly as another part of that campaign. It is a good thing that the debate will now be cut a little short, to ensure that Mrs Carnell goes out into the community and focuses on the issues - patients. How many patients are being treated in the hospital system? The answer is that 55,000 patients are being treated.
Mrs Carnell: No; they have not.
MR BERRY: They will be treated. That is the allocation for this year, 55,000. It was 50,500 last year. That target would have been reached if it were not for the strike by your doctor friends. We have to focus on this issue of the number of patients that are treated in our hospital system.
It is very easy to confuse the community on this issue, because if you say "bed" people think of the bedroom suite and the bed in the front room; they do not imagine it as it is in the hospital system. A bed is described as a piece of furniture located within a hospital and used for the accommodation of admitted patients. I have heard Mrs Carnell being critical of this, but this is the proper definition of beds which are used for the provision of services to patients. They include beds in wards, chairs, lounges, birthing centre beds and cots in approved neonatal nurseries. Beds exclude surgical tables, recovery trolleys, delivery beds and cots for unqualified newborn babies. The average person out in the community would not be aware of the definition of "beds" within the hospital system and
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