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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2310 ..

MR MOORE: I thank members. We recognise that there are problems in health. There are problems in health across every single state and territory in Australia and across every country in the world. Members may remember that I was in the United Kingdom with the CPA at the beginning of last year. I sat in the House of Commons when Tony Blair was asked questions about waiting lists. As he answered the questions, thoughts were going through my mind as to exactly what he was going to say about the way he was going to improve waiting lists. We have done that; we have improved them.

There are problems and Ms Tucker identified some of those problems, but I think it is worth pointing out that this is simply the best health budget that has ever been brought into this Assembly. Not only have we allocated $62.9 million for growing need in the community, but also we have done all the other things that the Chief Minister referred to. Ms Tucker said something that really highlights the sorts of issues faced by a health minister. Ms Tucker raised issues about disabilities, mental health and community care, and Mrs Carnell answered some of those questions.

We know that we are not meeting all of those needs. That is not something to be proud of. It is something for us to continue to try to manage, but it is so much more difficult to manage when there is such constant pressure on us in this house to put more nurses in the hospital. There is evidence to say that there is unmet need in the areas raised by Ms Tucker, and it is appropriate for the government to respond to them. There is not evidence to say that we are short on nurses in the hospital. There are loud voices claiming it. The evidence is actually the reverse.

The evidence is that, in general terms, we provide nurses at the rate of one for every four patients. You can see that in the report that I tabled earlier today. In other jurisdictions across Australia it varies from one for every 4.52 patients to about one for every six patients. Mr Osborne raised California as an example. Who would think of comparing the American health care system with the Australian system? In fact, I have taken advice from a nurse who has nursed in America that, particularly in California, in an intensive care unit you would get a ratio of a nurse to two patients, whereas here we have 1.5 nurses to each patient as our general ratio.

Mr Smyth: That is 0.5 per nurse per patient.

MR MOORE: In other words, 0.5 per nurse per patient. What we are seeing is that already we are significantly much better than America. Certainly, nursing numbers in the ACT are significantly higher than in any other place. While the pressure stays on to resolve this problem in the hospital, I think it is worth remembering just what that means . When you are talking of 100 nurses, you are talking of $5 million or $6 million, probably more than that. It is probably closer to $8 million because they are shift workers. That is the level of money that we are talking about when those demands are made without evidence.

At least Ms Tucker has put to us issues where there is evidence of unmet need. That is the balance that I am trying to achieve. An anonymous nurse who happened to work in the hospital 18 months ago made some claims about there not being enough nurses and the Leader of the Opposition was silly enough to pick up that story out of the paper and run with it. Where is the evidence to support his case?

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