Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 2346 ..

MR CORBELL

year for the next three years will get access to the elective surgery they need. That's 600 families benefiting directly from one of their members being able to get the access to elective surgery that they need.

You talk to me about getting outcomes on the ground. I can't give you a more concrete example than that. That is a very solid commitment by the government-a significant increase in funding for elective surgery.

The opposition would like us to measure the health budget by the capacity of our hospitals in relation to elective surgery. What a shallow and obscure analysis of a half a billion dollar budget-that the health of the health system itself will be determined, Mr Speaker, by whether or not people are having to wait certain periods of time for surgery. Yes, waiting times for elective surgery are important. But to use them as the only measure of the effectiveness and the capacity of the health system is shallow in the extreme; but unfortunately, Mr Speaker, that's all that the shadow minister for health can come up with.

Mr Speaker, he makes the claim that the government has cut funding to Calvary Hospital. That is simply wrong, and he knows it's wrong. I will put on the record again tonight that the issue was that Calvary Hospital, under the previous government, received a specific amount of money under the CUTS funding, as it was called, to improve elective surgery at Calvary Hospital. They got that, Mr Speaker, as a bribe for signing up to the Australian Health Care Agreement early.

They didn't spend any money themselves; they weren't interested in spending more money on elective surgery but they were quite happy to take the Commonwealth's money; and they were going to spend it. But the real test is: if they were serious about that ongoing provision, why didn't they take it out of the territory's own resources when they knew it was going to come to an end? Why didn't they take account of it in the outyears? Why didn't they put it into the budget in the outyears? They knew it was going to run out; it wasn't a bottomless pot of money. They knew it was going to run out. Did they make any provision in the outyears? No, they didn't, Mr Speaker.

They weren't serious. They weren't serious about spending additional money on elective surgery, but we are, Mr Speaker. And we put our money where our mouth is: an extra $6 million; 600 Canberrans every year extra, on top of the 4,000 or so who are treated every year in terms of elective surgery, are getting access to the elective surgery they need, Mr Speaker-real outcomes for real people on the ground.

Mr Speaker, it is interesting that along with waiting lists of course comes the issue of the reporting on waiting lists for our public hospitals. Mr Smyth said we should go back to the old system of reporting because that way people can find out how long they have to wait and where they are on the list. Well, I don't know whether Mr Smyth has actually ever looked at one of these documents, but it doesn't have a list of everyone telling you where you are in the list. You've got to ring the hospital to find that out. So a bit of basic research by Mr Smyth would probably have helped him in relation to that matter.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .