Page 2647 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 7 August 2013

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Thank goodness someone has finally seen the need for this service and to have extended hours. These nurses and admin staff are providing a gift and I believe this needs to continue.

Here is another:

Excellent facility—we could not access our regular GP and this service is great—please continue this clinic, as the mother of three young children, it is a comfort to know I can get care for my children if outside my GPs normal business hours. Thank you.

This is very similar to the feedback that I continue to hear and look forward to hearing more of when the Tuggeranong walk-in centre is delivered in the near future.

Of course this is only one part of what the ACT government is doing in the Health portfolio in Brindabella, with this adding to the $4.9 million allocated through funding of stage 2 of the upgrade of the Tuggeranong health centre. The Tuggeranong community health centre delivers a comprehensive range of healthcare services to the local community. The centre offers services aimed at assisting clients to better manage acute and chronic conditions in the community and closer to home, while reducing the reliance on hospitals.

I will name just a few of the services which are offered by this vital community health service: community nursing, including ambulatory care clinics; allied health services such as physiotherapy, podiatry and nutrition; diabetes services, including services for those with gestational diabetes—nurse educator and dietician; women, youth and children services; adult mental health services; alcohol and drug counselling; and pathology collection.

The upgrade of this facility is something that is welcomed by the community in Brindabella, and the improvements will bring the community health services in Tuggeranong to be something the area can be truly proud of.

I urge the Canberra Liberals to take a serious look at what the community wants from their health services and to stop using these important programs as yet another political football.

MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.16): I would like to thank Mr Hanson for raising this issue again today. I think it is important that we continue to talk about these matters.

I would like to take the opportunity to reiterate the Greens’ support for the nurse-led walk-in centres. Although many of us in this place agree that it would have been preferable for the walk-in centre at Woden not to have been located at the Canberra Hospital, I think that the Chief Minister has explained to us, both on previous occasions and again in some detail today, why the decision was taken to establish it there. I am certainly of the view that whilst it might have been optimal to have it somewhere else, it is better to have it where it is than not to have it at all, as might


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