Page 2371 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 August 2007

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Whilst acknowledging the expenditure on dental health, it is the role of states and territories to deliver on such services. That should be no surprise. Unfortunately, the minister chose, once again, to bag the federal government. You would not know there was a federal election coming, would you? But it is the job of states and territories to actually deliver the services.

A report released by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine on 1 August 2007 showed how dramatically patient care is deteriorating in Canberra’s hospitals. This is not to detract from the great care that our nursing professionals give. Since 2004, twice as many patients are waiting more than eight hours to get a hospital bed. This means that caring for access block patients represents around 40 per cent of emergency department workload.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report indicated that waiting times for elective surgery in ACT hospitals are the worst in the nation—the minister argues with that, but that is what the report has said—with the wait being 61 days for elective surgery. I certainly hope that we have been able to make better inroads in terms of cancer patients awaiting treatment. At one stage they were waiting longer for treatment than at the time of the report 12 months ago.

We recommended in our report that there needs to be a clear definition of health service standards specific to the ACT in order to break the cycle of chasing interstate statistics and to start measuring apples with apples—health service standards that meet the unique needs of this territory. Surely, Canberra-focused standards would empower our health professionals to deliver good service, knowing that the government recognises the unique circumstances in which they operate. Yearly performance reviews would then be meaningful, positive and client focused.

Clearly, despite the government crowing about the amount of money they have poured into the system, some things are just not improving to the extent that one would have thought. Hospital waiting times, nurse morale, costly administration, high costs of treating patients in the ACT compared with the national average, above national average costs in administration, the absence of the wider use of the latest information communication technologies and relevant software to enhance administration and general hospital management are but a few areas of concern.

Despite the massive injection of funding—and the opposition certainly welcomes the expenditure on mental health—this budget does not provide a clear vision for the future direction of our public health system as a whole.

DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (5.25): Health is the big winner in this year’s budget, as in last year’s. Even the Costello review, which recommended slash and burn in every other department, did not propose cuts to this, the most expensive area in ACT government service provision. It was apparently okay to reduce the amount of support that SAAP providers could give to clients, perhaps keeping them housed and with the means of preparing regular meals—incidentally keeping them healthy—but we must continue to increase spending on the sharp end of our complex health system, the bit where people end up more frequently if they are poorly housed, poorly fed and/or poorly educated.


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