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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (13 March) . . Page.. 1052 ..
MR STEFANIAK
(continuing):It does not surprise me that we have the second lowest number of full-time equivalent GPs of any state or territory. I believe this is an area that we, as a territory, need to address quickly, otherwise we will probably have the lowest number of GPs in any state or territory.
Mr Stanhope
: That is why we established a medical school.MR STEFANIAK
: I think it is about time you did something about insurance, because there is a real crisis out there, Chief Minister. Act on it!MR CORBELL
(Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (4.11): I thank members for their contributions to the debate. The whole system of funding for health care in the ACT is a shared responsibility, as it is nationally.The purpose of my statement is to highlight the failure of the federal government to take its responsibilities seriously. On this side of the house, this government has taken its responsibilities seriously. Mr Smyth stood up and made the trite comment-it could be described only as a trite comment-that he could not think of a single positive that this government has achieved in health care since coming to office. Well, Mr Smyth, try these out for size: $2.6 million for additional nurses.
Mr Smyth
: Less services.MR CORBELL
: Are you saying that nurses don't provide services, Mr Smyth? I am sure the Australian Nursing Federation would be interested to hear that. That is $2.6 million for extra services through additional nurses. There has been an increase in the average number of permanent full-time equivalent nurses of 49.9 per cent. There are almost 50 extra permanent full-time nurses on duty as a result of this government's actions. That is not a positive, according to Mr Smyth.Or you could look at equipment-$3.53 million for equipment, Mr Speaker, including $1.8 million for a multileaf collimator for the treatment of people with cancer; $1.2 million for the purchase of a CT scanner simulator-so that people who do CT scanning have the capacity to train on and use that equipment. According to Mr Smyth, that is not a positive. Then there is just the $200,000 for a nursing acuity system, which will assist nurses in determining the number of nurses needed to safely care for a patient, improving the quality of patient care. According to Mr Smyth, that is not a positive.
Let us look at where else we have seen improvements. The government has provided additional money to address issues around surgery and additional cost-weighted separations. We have focused on key areas. There is additional money for orthopaedics, plastic surgery, general surgery and other medical procedures-an additional 300 cost-weighted separations, an additional 300 incidences of service as a result of the government's funding, and a further 230 on top of that. According to Mr Smyth, they are not positives.
Mr Speaker, it is simply a trite comment from the shadow Minister for Health. Since I have been Minister for Health, I have not received a single question in question time from Mr Smyth as the shadow minister-not one question.. If he professes such a strong
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