Page 3941 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, the Minister has been working quite hard for some months at providing paediatric services but maintains his position that a paediatric ward - which is the typical off-the-cuff, promise them anything, irresponsible promise of the Leader of the Opposition - is not practical or possible at Calvary. I stand by the advice of the Royal Australian College of Paediatrics that a paediatric ward at Calvary would be both bad economics and bad medicine. It would be bad medicine. I have provided that letter.
Mr Humphries: That is not what Calvary thinks. What about services?
MR CONNOLLY: No; it is what Calvary thinks. You continue to fail to understand or deliberately seek to misrepresent the difference between providing some paediatric services and a paediatric ward.
Mrs Carnell: Which is exactly what we said.
MR CONNOLLY: No. You were on the radio promising paediatric wards; as usual, a slip of the tongue, promise them everything. Look at the press releases; look at the claims of the various candidates. You say, "We are going to have a paediatric ward at Calvary". What we have been doing, with the chief executive of Calvary Hospital and a number of surgeons who do provide, in particular, day surgery procedures at Calvary and who have for some time been providing some paediatric day procedures in the private hospital, is working out a protocol to ensure that some of those procedures can be performed in the public area at Calvary. Parents will have to give informed consent. It will have to be made clear to parents that we are pretty certain that we can perform this procedure here safely, but they must understand that there is one intensive care specialist paediatric facility in Canberra, and there will always be only one.
Mr Humphries: We did not say that there should be two. We never said that there should be two.
Mr Stefaniak: We said "a facility".
Mr Humphries: It is different to what you just said.
Mr Stefaniak: Services, Terry.
MR CONNOLLY: No; you said that there should be a paediatric ward. There will not be a paediatric ward, unless you go in and make decisions that run directly contrary to the advice of the Royal Australian College of Paediatrics. I have tabled that advice in the past, and I will certainly send a copy of it to you, Mr Stefaniak, if you have not seen it. It is a public document. The experts, the clinicians, say, "Do not duplicate paediatric wards". To duplicate a paediatric ward would mean a significant spreading of our resources. It would impact significantly adversely on the training of paediatric registrars, which is very important to maintaining a high-quality service in Canberra. However, we are exploring, and we have been working for quite some time - if you dispute my statement on this, I can produce documents to prove it - with Calvary to develop the possibility of providing some paediatric services at Calvary Hospital.
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