Page 231 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 November 2012
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The ACT Government is unlikely to be able to sustain this indefinitely …
What is needed is a new long-term approach to health care in the ACT in which a greater emphasis is given to the provision of preventative health care and primary health care.
Our public hospitals are struggling to meet the needs of the Canberra community. Be it our long elective surgery waiting times, our access block or long waiting times at emergency departments, access to health services in the ACT often trails other parts of the nation. This situation is made more difficult by the large number of patients that use our hospitals, in particular the Canberra Hospital; in fact, 25 per cent or thereabouts of patients come from New South Wales. A piece of correspondence I received before the election from the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation makes a very good point:
In Canberra currently there are only 1.9 acute care hospital beds available per 1,000 ACT residents. This is well below the current … national average of 2.6 per 1,000 …
That is because of that 25 per cent. When you take away the ACT average, it gets down to that 1.9, one of the lowest in the nation. The demand for health, in particular hospital services, is going to rise significantly over the next 10 years as a result of a growing and ageing population. An analysis conducted by ACT Health in 2007 indicates that by 2022 the number of overnight hospital admissions will increase by 49 per cent and the number of overall hospital admissions will increase from 54,000 to 96,000.
A significant factor in this increased pressure on our hospital system will be a massive increase in the burden of chronic disease. Conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and kidney disease are all increasing at alarming rates. It is clear that we need to expand the capacity of our public hospitals, but we must also find ways to take pressure off our hospitals.
According to the AIHW, chronic diseases contribute most to morbidity, disability and mortality in Australia. The Chief Health Officer’s report referred to in Ms Porter’s motion provides a comprehensive view of the impact of chronic disease on the ACT population and I recommend its reading to members. Some of the statistics and trends he outlines are very disturbing:
Chronic conditions accounted for approximately 80% of the total burden of disease and injury. Cancers (19%), mental disorders (15%), and cardiovascular disease (15%) were the leading disease categories contributing to total burden of disease and injury in the ACT.
The reasons for this increase in chronic disease are in part due to an ageing population but also due to lifestyle factors such as obesity and smoking. This is not isolated to the ACT, but with our ageing population it will have a particular impact.
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