Page 391 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 7 March 2006
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will not decide to wait until an additional three studies have been undertaken. I simply close with Professor Richardson’s own words:
The magnitude of the association is around 13 excess in-hospital deaths annually, similar to the number of people killed on the roads in the ACT. If replicated in other studies, this association represents a significant public health issue.
That research has been confirmed by the study in Western Australia.
MS MacDONALD (Brindabella) (4.29): I would like to endorse Mr Corbell’s comments about the ACT public health system. No ACT government has demonstrated the energy and drive of the current administration in increasing investment in health services and responding to changes in the demand and delivery of care. To top it off, this government has put its credibility on the line by providing the people of the ACT with the most comprehensive report on health service activity ever seen in the ACT or elsewhere.
I accept, like all of us here, that there are instances when our health services demonstrate that improvements can be made to access and care. But thanks to the hard work of those in the system this is a rare occurrence. For most of us, when we go to hospital, especially to an emergency department, we are not at our best. Sometimes we do not understand the reasons why we might have to wait when we believe that our needs are great and that they are not being met.
We all need to know that every person who attends our emergency department as a category 1 patient receives care on arrival. When a number of high priority patients attend at the same time, this can lead to longer waiting times for others. Over the last few years, as the minister noted, demand from the most urgent emergency department patients has increased by almost 50 per cent. This level of increase is not something that one could predict over such a short time frame, and it has resulted in some people waiting too long for care.
But the government has not just twiddled its thumbs. The unprecedented increase in urgent emergency department cases has resulted in more people being admitted to hospital, and this has resulted in increased pressures throughout the hospital system. This has not been a crisis, but it has placed increased pressures on the hospital and health system. It would have resulted in crisis if the government had done nothing.
The government has increased capacity in the system by increasing bed numbers and changing the shape and nature of services to better meet patient needs. It has increased the level of clinical staff working in our hospitals across medical, nursing and allied health areas and it has provided additional capital investment to ensure that the people of the ACT continue to access high quality services.
On top of that, the government has instituted a process that brings clinicians and consumers together to assess patient journeys across the health system. The program shows that our clinicians understand that the patient is the reason why the health system exists and that together doctors, nurses and patients can develop new ways to provide care that improve both access to care and outcomes from that care. Most importantly, these groups will develop solutions that will work in the ACT context and that are owned
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