Page 1519 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 June 2007
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Northern Territory and Western Australia have the highest rates, at 47 per 1,000. But let’s look at the other important issues across the board. Let’s take, for instance, people waiting for elective surgery, which is an important health service indicator. Whether you like it or not, it is.
In 2004-05, one person in 10 in the ACT, one in 10, waited for longer than 12 months for elective surgery in our public hospitals. That was still the case in 2005-06. After hundreds of millions of dollars extra, minister after minister, and reform program after reform program it is no better. It is the worst outcome for any jurisdiction in the country. The Australian average was one in 20. We were one in 10. Moreover, the median waiting time for patients admitted from the waiting list ranged from 25 days in Queensland to 61 days in the ACT, more than double. The Australian median was 29 days. The ACT was more than double that. Of more concern is the increase in the median waiting time from 45 to 61 days. That is not good enough.
Take a different indicator, people waiting for attention in emergency departments of our public hospital. You heard me read the nurse’s comments. She said that it does not work, that it is all glitz, all glamour, all gloss. It does not work and it has not worked because those people who dedicate their lives to medical practices in the various forms are not being given the structure in which to operate. The ACT again performed very poorly in regard to emergency departments. Of all the people presenting at emergency departments round Australia, 52 per cent or half of all presentations in the ACT were not seen on time—52 per cent. The Australian average was 30 per cent. The ACT was two-thirds higher; 73 per cent higher were not seen on time.
Take another indicator, the median time that people wait to be seen in the emergency department. People waited for 46 minutes in the ACT, much longer than anywhere else in Australia. The median time was 25 minutes. No other state was worse than 35 minutes. It was 84 per cent worse than the Australian average. We have a younger, fitter, healthier population in the ACT, but we wait longer. What about acute care beds? I am delighted that the minister made the commitment the other day to reach the national average. (Time expired.)
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (5.41): I would like to take this opportunity to express my support far the ACT's hospital and allied health workers, including our mental health workforce. I am sure that many of them welcomed the increase in funding in yesterday’s health budget but, when we look carefully at where our health expenditure is going, it is clear that those highly pressured health workers will continue to feel the pressure well into the future.
This year’s health budget is very much about bricks and buildings, not the services themselves, and certainly not primarily about keeping people well and out of hospital. Sadly, the largest single budget item is for car parking at Canberra Hospital, which presumably will pay for itself once it is up and running, and charging users. But when we take this budget item away, the health budget look somewhat different. The increased funding for acute care is welcome. It is good to see funds for hospital services needed in the north of Canberra, such as the coronary unit at Calvary. There is no question we need to continue to invest in our hospitals. But merely spending money is not the best way to improve our hospitals.
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