Page 151 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2012
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you had given us the courtesy of your presence at that meeting you would understand how that funding flows. There is no black hole, unfortunately for Mr Hanson’s argument this morning. The funding is there. It is guaranteed. And guess what, Mr Hanson? We are doubling it.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (11.10): Innovation in primary health care is an important topic and the Greens support the establishment of nurse-led walk-in centres in the ACT. This is an approach to the delivery of primary health care that has been highly successful in other countries, particularly in the UK, and it provides the community with another avenue for accessing health care. This is one of these models which we need to start to consider. It is one that has a lot of support in the community, a lot of support from a variety of different groups. While there might be some medical practitioners who do not support it, I think it is worth expanding on in the ACT. It is worth making that point.
Election promises are also important to the community, and it is valid to address whether a government has implemented those promises and, if not, why this has not occurred. The Minister for Health did promise, in the lead-up to the last election, to establish three walk-in clinics if elected. To date only one has been established at the Canberra Hospital, and that has taken a significant amount of time, effort and consultation to establish, largely due to concerns raised by medical practitioners. This is also largely why the walk-in centre was located at TCH.
As a result of the process leading up to the establishment of the walk-in centre, the government conducted a trial and evaluation process. I recognise that the issues that emerged in establishing the first centre probably could not have been identified at the start. The most important point from this process is that it has been a success for consumers and has had significant support from the people who have used it and can now be duplicated elsewhere in Canberra.
The Greens provided a submission to the discussion paper on the proposed expansion of the walk-in centre on 30 September 2011. In that submission we said that we would like to see the nurse practitioners’ scope of practice expanded to recognise their skill set. We also said we would like to see the clinic expanded and/or moved to other sites in the community, particularly those with high concentrations of social disadvantage.
A number of groups have stated that the walk-in centre should be relocated from TCH. In fact, the Greens believe that it probably would have been better for it not to have initially been located at TCH. Obviously there has been quite a lot of discussion about why it was located there, but we do believe that the relocation of it should be something that is considered along with that expanded scope of practice.
When the Minister for Health announced in December that the Labor Party, if re-elected, intended to establish walk-in clinics in Tuggeranong and Belconnen, the Greens were fully aware that this could involve the relocation of the walk-in clinic from the Canberra Hospital site. We knew this because it was noted in the media release accompanying the release of the discussion paper and is also noted in the discussion paper.
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