Page 3690 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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MR BERRY: Mr Humphries interjects, "Yes". Misrepresentation is often a picture in somebody's mind. I rather think that has been part of this motion's origins as well. It has been about that ongoing campaign about what impact beds have on the provision of our public hospital services. I hope that Mrs Carnell uses all the measures which dictate the provision of hospital services; not only those who are admitted to the hospital system but those who are not and who receive services as well. The problem for politicians is that this is not a simple thing to present to the community and criticise. It is very easy to criticise, because nobody wants to be sick; nobody wants to go to a hospital; nobody wants to wait; and everybody wants to come out of it looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. All of those things do not always happen. In all cases, I am sure, the hospital does its level best to ensure that people come out better than they went in.
Madam Speaker, I urge members to resoundingly defeat this censure motion of Mr Connolly. It has been farcical; it has been something that we could well do without. I also note that it has taken up a lot of time of the Assembly which could have been devoted to some important business.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (5.35), in reply: Madam Speaker, I sum up by just showing how a good spin can work. It is a complicated area; there is no doubt. I am disappointed that before the Independents took on board those figures they did not actually come in and run with those figures that Mr Connolly's people put a spin on. If they were right - and I am sure that the Independents will now see this - there were 560 beds at Woden Valley Hospital at the end of the financial year, according to the Government's own figures. The figure of 560 actually included the 20 neonatal cots that we have been told about, and the 10 dialysis beds on top of the 10 that are actually in the hospital system. Therefore, without those extra 10 and the 20 neonatal beds, we would have had 530 beds at that particular stage at Woden. The figures that I tabled the other day show that by the end of August we had 562 beds.
What did we do - open 30? Obviously, we did not. That is where the argument that the neonatal cots actually were in the figures at the end of the financial year falls apart totally. Certainly, the figure that I tabled for the end of August, the 562, did not include the 20 neonatal cots or the extra 10 dialysis beds. It included 10 dialysis beds, the ones that are actually in Woden; it did not include the satellite beds. They certainly were not included in the 562 beds that Woden Valley Hospital says that they had at the end of August.
Does that mean that in reality - just have a think about it for a moment - they do not exist in the 562 beds at the end of August? We add those on if we are going to compare like with like. If we are going to compare the 560 at Woden at the end of the financial year with the figure at the end of August, using the department's own figures, we add the 20 neonatal cots and the 10 renal dialysis beds that are not included in the 562 at the end of August; we get 592 beds at the end of August. What we are doing there is comparing like with like, according to the explanation that you were given. The 560 goes up to 592. We now have more beds than they are saying we have. They claim that they have 584 beds, and that is without adding in any.
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