Page 4361 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 27 November 2013

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engaging young and emerging music performers in the Festival program, enabling them to progress their careers by working in collaboration with respected composers and performers.

I commend the Canberra Critics Circle, of which my senior adviser Clinton White is a member, as well as the MEAA and Canberra City News for honouring Canberra’s talent in this way.

Mr Assistant Speaker, I want to finish by noting that there was a common theme through all the acceptance speeches. That was that Canberra is a great place to live and work as an artist. Many of the awardees remarked that if it were not for Canberra, they would not be working as they do, nor would they be receiving the accolades that these awards represent. We in Canberra are the beneficiaries of the tremendous talent that we cultivate here. I congratulate all the award winners.

Healthcare awards

MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella) (6.39): I rise tonight to speak about the ACT “Quality in healthcare awards” that I attended on behalf of the Chief Minister on the 13th of this month. The annual awards night is one that is consistently well attended by the staff that work within the ACT healthcare system, whose exceptional work in innovation drive our healthcare system to be the best it can be.

On the night I discussed the popular story of Daniel Paton and Ashlea Hanson, who were married at Calvary hospital in July during the last days of Daniel’s battle with cancer. The Calvary staff did an extraordinary job to put together a very memorable and moving ceremony in the space of about 18 hours. After Daniel passed away, Ashlea wrote to the Chief Minister and asked her to thank the staff on her behalf. She said:

My family cannot express the overwhelming feeling of gratitude we have for the medical, pastoral and administrative staff at Calvary who provided caring and compassionate support to Daniel and our families … In addition to the nursing staff, I would like to express our thanks to all the ancillary staff such as the cleaning staff who offered many kind words and the catering staff who supplied sandwiches to the floor when we were outside Daniel’s room.

This is one of the more high profile examples of the incredible lengths health and hospital staff will go to for people in their care.

On the awards, there were 18 finalists across the six categories. Each demonstrated a commitment to exploring innovative ways to enhance current systems and practices to improve patient outcomes and continue to increase the quality of care provided. The winners of each category were as follows: access and safety award, ACT Health Renal Service, “Use of regional citrate anticoagulation (RCT) in haemodialysis”; consumer participation award, neonatal intensive care unit, “Parents participation in clinical bedside rounds: a randomised cross-over control trial”; innovative models of care award, allied health advisor’s office, “Extended scope physiotherapy: reducing patient waiting times and improving patient access to orthopaedic outpatient appointments and musculoskeletal ED services”; safety award, Community Care


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