Page 3119 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 16 September 2015
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
claims in our community. It is, of course, what we expect. It is what we have come to expect from this man who thinks he can be a leader of our city.
Let us turn to the very important points that Ms Fitzharris has raised in her motion. She recognises that investment in health services is about providing contemporary places of care for Canberrans, improving capacity so that more people can get access to service when they need it, as well as making sure that our health professionals have good facilities to work in.
It is this Labor administration that has made the commitments we have seen in health. I would be really interested to see whether the previous Liberal administration can mount the claim that they have in the past made investments in health infrastructure in the order of the $900 million health infrastructure program delivered by this Labor government. Of course they cannot.
Major projects have been delivered by this government that are strongly welcomed and endorsed by the community. The Centenary Hospital for Women and Children is an incredibly popular facility. The Canberra Region Cancer Centre for the first time ensures that for people with cancer, instead of being compelled to go to different parts of the hospital for different types of carers to address that most frightening of diseases, the services are provided to them; the services come to them in one place.
Of course, there is the new adult mental health unit. I had the great pleasure of visiting the adult mental health unit recently. If I was suffering from a mental illness, Madam Assistant Speaker, and I needed to be in that form of facility, I cannot think of a better facility to be in. It delivers dignity. It provides a contemporary, modern, safe facility for what are some of the most troubling and difficult issues that people have to face when it comes to issues of mental illness. That facility is a credit to our city. It is a credit to the people who have designed it and who deliver services in it every day, and it is due to this Labor government’s health infrastructure program.
Of course, we have the very important upgrades of our community health centres in Belconnen, Tuggeranong and Gungahlin—new facilities in Belconnen and Gungahlin. In this year’s budget we are enhancing those. We are delivering new mental health services into the Gungahlin region. For the first time we have a dedicated mental health team for Gungahlin as part of one of the largest ever investments in mental health made in an ACT government budget. This was in the most recent budget.
We also have great facilities like the upgraded and renovated Tuggeranong Community Health Centre. I had the opportunity to visit the staff down there in the last few months and, in particular, to look at the new dialysis unit operating in the Tuggeranong health centre. This is the first time that any ACT government has delivered dialysis in the Tuggeranong Valley. Anyone who understands issues around dialysis would know it is a potentially crippling condition that requires people to seek extended periods of treatment every week. We are talking hours and hours out of people’s day because of the need for dialysis.
Having that service close to where people live in the Tuggeranong Valley means they do not have to travel further afield to get the care they need and they get it in a
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video