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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2333 ..

care unit at Calvary Hospital is in dire need of an upgrade. It needs to be able to expand; it doesn’t have enough space to fit in the number of beds that it would like in emergency, with all of the machines that it needs to keep people alive while they’re in emergency. That is a quite ridiculous situation to be in, and it’s quite disappointing to see. But even when Calvary thought they would get this money in this budget it wasn’t there. Both hospitals provide important services and both need to be supported.

We’ve had discussion this afternoon about bypass and load sharing, about the public hospital system as it does work across the two hospitals, but I believe that this government, the ministry, is focusing more on the Canberra Hospital at the expense of the Calvary Hospital when we should be focusing on both. The public health system is not just confined to TCH. The residents of Belconnen and Gungahlin deserve a public health system of high standard. In funding public hospital services we cannot afford to favour one hospital over another.

In responding to the opposition leader’s claims that we need a major overhaul of the public health systems, Mr Corbell has been ready to sing the praises of TCH but seemed to forget to mention the public health services that are provided at Calvary, and I think that is a sad reflection on where this government is heading. We do need to focus on both our hospitals. Yes, we can talk about bypass and load sharing and the stress that both our hospitals are feeling, but if both hospitals are able to strengthen the services that they deliver they can complement each other. When the emergency situation arises that bypass is needed, that load sharing is required, we know that we are getting top-quality service at both hospitals.

Mrs Dunne has spoken about personal experience. My Democrat colleague Senator Andrew Bartlett has recently, and unfortunately for him, been able to visit both Canberra and Calvary hospitals because of injuries he sustained on the sporting field. I’m happy to report that he said both hospitals were of excellent quality. I think that is a ringing endorsement of the system we have, but we cannot afford to improve one hospital at the neglect of another and we cannot afford to ignore the hospital system and the state that it is in. We do need to be doing more to improve the health of Canberrans and improve the hospital system that we have to support them when they need it.

MS TUCKER (4.48): Economic, medical and demographic changes are putting pressures on health-care systems across the developing world. In Australia this is complicated by our split federal system. It’s worth noting that the Australian Health Reform Alliance put a plan on the table based on a Canadian model which would combine state and Commonwealth health funding to be managed by a trust. The alliance includes representatives of the Australian Consumers Association, Australian Council of Social Service, Australian Health Promotion Association, Australian Health Care Association, Australian Nursing Federation, Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation, Catholic Health Australia, Centre for Clinical Governance Research in Health, Centre for Health Promotion Evaluation, Committee of Deans of Australian Medical Schools, Committee of Presidents of Medical Colleges, Doctors Reform Society of Australia, Effective Health Care Network, Health Issues Centre, Health Professional Council of Australia, National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, National Council on Intellectual Disability, National Public Hospitals Clinicians Taskforce, National Rural Health Alliance, New South Wales Nurses Association, Public Health Association of Australia and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

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