Page 573 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 2010
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broker an outcome that addressed the concerns raised by the community and we entered into negotiations with the ACT government in good faith. We were still working in good faith when Little Company of Mary Health Care decided to pull out of the sale.
The Greens did support the ACT government’s proposed purchase of Calvary Public Hospital as we do believe that public health should be in public hands. Linking the purchase of Calvary to the sale of another public health asset understandably raised significant concerns from a number of community organisations and the public in general. The Greens do not believe that you solve one problem by creating another.
A significant proportion of the community had to be considered in regard to the Calvary and hospice debate. At any given time, around 220 people in the ACT receive palliative care at the hospice or in the community. We treated the concerns raised about the sale of Clare Holland House on their merits. The Greens still believe an independent review of palliative care in the ACT is relevant, given our ageing population, the concerns expressed by the community around one service provider being responsible for the delivery of over 200 palliative care places and as it is something that peak health groups in the ACT had been calling for prior to the Calvary sale.
The Greens are hopeful but cautious about the government’s ability to negotiate an outcome with LCM. As such, we retain the position that compulsory acquisition is an option that should be considered. The Greens think it is in the best interests of ACT taxpayers and health consumers if the north side public hospital is under public ownership. The health minister has already indicated that the ACT government is likely to invest $200 million in Calvary, despite not being able to purchase the hospital. I acknowledge that compulsory acquisition has risks involved. It is high risk; but it is also high gain, and upon initial inspection legal precedence is in the territory’s favour.
At the heart of Ms Porter’s motion is a call on the Minister for Health to work with LCM to develop a solution whereby the ACT government can invest money at the Calvary site and have that investment protected. While the Greens do hope that this can be achieved, we wonder if that is possible.
The Auditor-General found through the 2008 investigation into the Calvary agreement that LCM and the ACT government were unable to achieve consensus about what a new and improved operating agreement would look like. I do not envy the ACT government’s position in these ongoing negotiations, as LCM does very much hold the cards in this situation.
Suggestions that a third hospital be built present a great challenge. It would potentially require withdrawing of resources from the current Calvary hospital, cause greater uncertainty for staff and possibly require a rethink of the capital asset development program. We already have a functioning hospital site in Bruce and it makes sense to concentrate efforts for future hospital plans on the existing site. Of course, no option should be ruled out.
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