Page 3433 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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Mr Hanson: I was just going to make a point under standing order 42. The minister is addressing me. If there is a concern with my interjections, I would ask you to call the minister to order—to stop addressing members and, rather, address her comments through you.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Proposed expenditure—Part 1.5—ACT Local Hospital Network—$429,135,000 (net cost of outputs), totalling $429,135,000.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time limit for this is 30 minutes and we are starting at 5.18.
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (5.18): I will speak briefly. I am very disappointed that the Chief Minister has used this opportunity to provide a personal attack on me. There is an opportunity here, as I said, for a tripartisan approach to commend the Health staff. I am very disappointed that the Chief Minister has dealt in such negativity and has chosen to personally smear and attack rather than join with me and congratulate her Health staff, who have done so much work over the last four years.
We know that there are problems in the health system. We know that there have been issues but, after four years, I have chosen this opportunity to take the time to congratulate every single health area in the public health system for the work they have been doing. I must say I am very disappointed that the health minister has not joined in that exercise but has decided to continue with what has been a series of negative attacks on me personally. It is very disappointing. We will probably hear more negativity from the health minister, but I stand by my comments and I again congratulate all those hardworking staff in our public health system.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (5.19): The Greens voted in favour of the move to a local hospital network and want hospital providers working together to better meet the changing needs of the ACT population. Part of the reason for the COAG move to local hospital networks is to achieve greater efficiencies in hospital systems. The Greens welcome this move, but do not want to see efficiency become such a focus that other measures suffer.
The budget features a strategic indicator measuring the number of people who wait four hours or less in the emergency department. Future commonwealth bonus payments are contingent on those targets being met. This is obviously a matter that has been prosecuted quite widely. The ACT measures well against quality indicators such as infection and readmission rates and patients suffering major trauma are treated within emergency times.
The issue I have raised many times is that we do not want to compromise quality of care in order to meet waiting measures which do not really show anything about the quality of care a person receives or the outcomes of that care. The current president of the ACT branch of the Australian Medical Association has said publicly that hospital staff should focus on providing good treatment to their patients and that he did not
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