Page 1520 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 June 2007
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I want to take over from where Mr Smyth left off in regard to the emergency services department. There would not be too many people in Canberra who have not had experience of the emergency services department at the Canberra Hospital. I have certainly spent many hours there, either for my own or for my children’s concerns. I have relatives and friends who do. Recently I received an email from a parent who had also spent many hours there over the years. Often it is not one’s own concerns that preoccupy us; it is that family with the child that will not stop crying or whatever and the absolute boredom of children. It was suggested by this parent that perhaps there could be some toys for children to play with, perhaps there could be a place where people could make a cup of coffee without having to go away and maybe lose their place.
I know that there have been several huge expenditures around the emergency services. Like most people, I know a few nurses around the place and I am not sure that they are consulted. Frankly, the changes that are made there indicate that they are made by designers, architects and administrators, but the people who work at the coal face would say that there is not a need for a big vestibule or whatever; there is a need for a more comfortable place. They might be able to advise about the colour scheme as well. It is not enough to say that we are spending millions of dollars on something. Spending money does not automatically mean improvement. Nonetheless, I do not to detract from the fact that I have always, in the end, had quality care at Canberra Hospital. I am very grateful for it. I expect I will use it again. I just want to say that money is not everything.
For the rest of my speech I want to focus on primary health care issues. I believe that there is an imbalance and a lack of vision in the way in which we are allocating our health expenditure. If we want to reduce the pressure on costly hospital services, we must direct more funding to primary care and community-based health care, including early intervention and prevention. In 2007 we are still seeing health funding primarily directed to costly acute care hospital-based services. I know that they are the pointy end of the budget. I know that they serve the sickest people and that our general triage system demands them. But we are investing in our population’s health if we increase access to primary health care.
With the very low rate of bulkbilling and ACT GPs closing their lists to new patients, where will all the new public servants coming to fill positions in Canberra find GPs? I acknowledge the government's work on trying to attract GPs to the ACT, but so is every other municipality in Australia. More needs to be done or, quite simply, people coming to live in Canberra will up and leave, as they have in other jurisdictions that cannot provide quality health services, such as the Northern Territory. But even more importantly, easily accessible quality primary health care can act as a bulwark, helping to stop health conditions deteriorating to the extent that more costly specialist and acute services and hospitalisation are required. We need to do more to link our primary health, community health and social services. Creating pathways within the health system that are easy to navigate will go a long way to reducing the need for acute care services. Investing more of our health budget at this end, in keeping people well and out of hospital, will ultimately reduce our need for ever expanding hospital services.
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