Page 3072 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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MS GALLAGHER: Yes, I believe the mental health system has, and when you talk to the sector, the sector will say that, yes, it has. They will tell you that there is a lot more to be done, they have not got everything they want and they want more. They want to see legislative reform. They want to see more services in the community and they want to see better holistic wrap-around services. They will say that, but they will also say it is a lot better than it used to be.
Ms Bresnan did actually go to a few of the initiatives in the budget and talk about them, unlike the Liberals. Again, Mr Seselja gave an academy award winning performance and managed to ignore the entire budget. The only thing he did not do was break into song when he was prancing around giving his little lecture on the Health portfolio.
This budget is an important one for health. It is important from the point of national health reform, and I note the Liberals’ refusal to understand or even take the time to understand the national health and hospital reform work that is being done or my answers that I gave. Ms Hunter said it yesterday: 44 pages of Hansard on one point about whether the GST was retained by the commonwealth or whether it came to the ACT. I stand by my evidence that that money remains in the ACT for ACT health purposes.
I will come back to national health reform, but this budget includes increases for mental health and for critical care capacity, both at Calvary hospital and Canberra Hospital. It deals with growth in demand for elective surgery, providing for 800 elective surgery operations through this next year. It sees some flow-through money from the national health reform. I note that the Liberals like to keep quoting WA and how great it was that they held out on national health reform. Come 1 July, WA is not getting any of this additional money from the commonwealth. It works out to be around $80 million coming to the territory over the next four years, and WA is not getting any of it. We believe the ACT is better off for getting those payments.
There is extra money in the budget for more acute beds and subacute beds, for growth in cancer services, for increased demand for aged care services and for overall growth in activity output across both hospitals. There is increased demand for obstetrics and gynaecology services, which has seen an increase of 26 per cent in terms of birth numbers over the past couple of years. There is a relatively modest allocation for chronic disease management.
I listened to Mr Smyth on preventative health, and I agree: the more that we can do in this area the better it will be in terms of pressure on the acute system. But the balance the government has to reach is working out how you actually fund the current acute system and the demands in the growth there whilst prioritising preventative health initiatives.
I am sure Mr Smyth will be very happy to know that, as of today, there is a new phone line: “keep healthy”. Canberrans can call to receive confidential telephone counselling around advice for healthy lifestyles in an aim to target a group in the community that perhaps has not sought advice or information in the past. Telephone coaching and telephone information is certainly proving to be a very successful strategy in terms of reaching people and providing them with information about health services.
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