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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (5 September) . . Page.. 2864 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

a quarter to five on the Friday night. I responded at a quarter past five and organised a meeting for last Monday morning.

On the Monday morning, I met with the Nursing Federation, along with a number of nurses from emergency who explained to me their concerns. The nurse management and the hospital management agreed that they would look at the particular issues of extra nursing at the Canberra Hospital. I understand that emergency had been offered a single extra nurse for one of its shifts. Since that meeting I have been informed that it was requested by the Nursing Federation that an extra nurse be provided for each shift, not just for a specific shift. That has been agreed and the positions, as I understand, have been advertised.

Mr Stanhope, you are correct: there is pressure on the emergency section of the hospital. There has been a slight but constant increase in emergency over the last six months. Some of that has to do with the extra services for the Snowy Mountains by the SouthCare helicopter, but we are working to deal with those issues to ensure that the emergency section is adequately staffed and delivers its services in an appropriate way.

That does not overcome the situation that is always going to arise in an emergency section when a category 4 or 5 patient-that is, somebody who has cut a finger or is in a situation that would have been able to be dealt with by a GP-comes into emergency seeking to have the matter dealt with by emergency. There will be some delays for those people if there were a major trauma-indeed, it can happen with any emergency, but it is much more so for a major trauma-and the emergency section was diverted from dealing with people who could wait to dealing with most serious cases. I think all of us would be prepared to wait for the serious cases-for example, a burns victim or a crash victim-to be dealt with as the highest priority.

The emergency section, as part of the trauma section, has just become the first hospital in Australia to be accredited. It is a fantastic part of the hospital. It is doing extraordinarily well, as indeed is the Canberra Hospital generally.

MR KAINE: My questions is to the Minister for Urban Services. Minister, you will recall that not so long ago a variation to the Territory Plan which would have allowed some residential development at the Federal Golf Club was rejected by this Assembly. Given that the club has indicated that it is considering its options in terms of what has been described as an as of right development within this lease, will the minister indicate whether the government is considering reintroducing the variation to the Territory Plan so that the Assembly can reconsider its position on the matter?

MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, this matter was dealt with by the Assembly and we all know the outcome of that. If the Assembly were to direct me, as minister, to reintroduce that variation, obviously the government would respect the will of the Assembly. It is not the government's intention to reintroduce such a variation, unless that is done.

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