Page 1923 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 June 2015
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Of course, there is a further $600 million less in health and hospital funding that we know we are going to lose out on because of the federal Liberal government’s failure—the Liberal Party’s failure—to honour commitments to properly fund our health and hospital services. So that is where the big dollars are, and that is where the Liberal Party are short changing our community, short changing our hospital services and short changing every single Canberran that is going to need care in our health, hospital and community health facilities over the next decade. That is their legacy.
They have had the gall to stand up and defend it, and they have the gall to say that these cuts have not happened. Well, they have happened. They are in the federal budget, they are in the ACT budget, and it is to the shame of the Liberal Party that they have failed to defend Canberra and stand up for our hospitals and our health system.
In contrast, we are making these critical investments. $1.5 billion has now been committed by the ACT government budget to health and hospital services. Let me talk about some of the important commitments. There is $40.6 million being invested directly into acute care services in our public hospitals. That includes funding of over $5 million to continue the provision of expert emergency specialist care in our emergency departments, and $23 million for new general hospital beds at the Canberra Hospital and Calvary hospital. There will be 16 new acute care beds delivered in the next 12 months across Calvary public and the Canberra Hospital—12 at the Canberra Hospital and four at Calvary public. In addition, there will be two new intensive care beds.
These are some of the most expensive but most critical acute care services that our public hospital system has to deliver. Keeping people alive when they have suffered serious trauma or very serious illness is a critical function of our public hospital system, and we are expanding the capability of our intensive care unit to deliver that care again at the Canberra Hospital.
We are doing the same for neonatal intensive care. We are a key referral centre, not just for our city but for our region, and we see many sick, premature babies needing expert intensive care support so that they can survive those critical days, weeks and months following early birth. And we are making that investment. An extra neonatal intensive care bed at the Canberra Hospital in the women’s and children’s area is a very important investment, and that is funded by this budget as well.
We are expanding care for people in our community. More Canberrans will be able to get care in their community through hospital in the home. That is a really important expansion as well. We are continuing to put downward pressure on elective surgery and reducing waiting times for Canberrans when it comes to elective surgery. An extra 500 elective surgery procedures will be funded this year, on top of the 12,000 we already fund. Again, it is funding that speaks to this government’s priorities.
We will also be funding significant new initiatives in the area of mental health. I am particularly proud, as health minister, to see one of the largest increases in funding for mental health services that we have seen for many years. $31.9 million more will go into mental health services in our community, both in the acute care and in the community response.
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