Page 1350 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
the ACT government to purchase Calvary Public Hospital under a new proposal are at, I would say, the infancy stage. That is because we do not want to proceed to any more rigorous and thorough detailed discussions until we get a commitment that this proposal can be pursued.
There is no point going through all of the effort of ACT Health, ACT Treasury and, indeed, the community if, at the end of the day, it is not going to have the support of the broader organisation that is involved with the management of Calvary Public Hospital. We have written to the archbishop around this matter. The archbishop has responded, but I can tell you that there has been no commitment given that this proposal will actually proceed to the outcome that the government is seeking.
The issue for the government is how we best provide the networked system of hospitals that this community needs. We are the only jurisdiction in the country that has 30 per cent of its public hospital services managed by a non-government provider. No other jurisdiction has that. I think New South Wales may have the next highest non-government management of their public hospitals at about 12 per cent. But what we have here is two public hospitals under two different owners and two different managers. I do not think it delivers the best outcomes in terms of a seamless and integrated healthcare system.
Indeed, when you look at the work that has been done under the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission when they have been talking about networking hospitals—that is, having district hospitals managed by the same management arrangements as the tertiary hospital in that region—you can actually see that the detailed health planners understand the work that we have been trying to examine here and move forward with here.
Everybody in health management across the world understands that you need to network your hospitals in your local area. That is something that we, and I think governments of all different colours in this place, have struggled with under the arrangements with Little Company of Mary Health Care and ACT Health running the two different hospitals.
We also have the issue of the capital investment that is required. Although Mr Hanson finds it very easy to roll off Mr Dwyer and Sinclair Davidson as experts in this, no-one in all of their analysis has been able to demonstrate how you fund capital in an asset you do not own without it affecting your bottom line, and that is the issue for us. They will critique the Treasury analysis and they will have their own views around that and, in Mr Dwyer’s case, you concentrate on the discounted cash flow, you do not actually look at other measures of performance of the ACT budget. Every time we give a grant to a non-government organisation—it happens with non-government schools, it happens with community organisations, it happens under those scenarios—it hits our bottom line.
Exactly the same situation occurs if we are to spend money on Calvary: the subacute facilities hit our bottom line; the intensive care unit, $10 million, that hits our bottom line. When we proceed to a car park for Calvary—and we will have to fund that very soon—it will hit our bottom line. There is absolutely no question about it.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video