Page 2021 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 7 June 2017
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Mr Hanson will recall that when he made his announcements in relation to our commitments to rebuilding buildings 2 and 3, the then health minister said that it was unnecessary, that it was ridiculous and that we did not have to do that for at least 10 years. But it was quite clear after a while that they were mugged by reality—the reality of the polls—and the government came on board with a promise in relation to the hospital.
What we have seen is the SPIRE project. It is quite clear that the SPIRE project was a commitment to funding a hospital rebuilding in the ACT that was not the Liberal Party’s promise. They could not possibly do anything that the Liberal Party had done; so they had to come up with a different model, which is why in the budget at the moment we are seeing a large amount of money being re-spent on planning for the diagnostic and treatment services that had already been planned for the demolished and re-built buildings 2 and 3.
This is the problem that we have today. We have a system where we know that we are going to have to wait five or six years before that system comes into operation. In the meantime there will be increasing pressure on the hospital system. Even when that is finished, we will have a dead heart in the middle of the hospital buildings where buildings 2 and 3 will not have been refurbished. Therefore, the whole hospital campus will be compromised through that.
In addition, we have a whole lot of issues in the health department which have not been addressed, which cannot be addressed by mere money. We have continuing problems with staff morale and bullying. We have issues of failing to report on data, which has again resulted in another root and branch review of data systems in the hospital.
In today’s Canberra Times, for example, the AMA’s branch president, Dr Steve Robson, is reported as saying:
…there was a “downside” to the budget, with a growing shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists in the ACT and what he dubbed “a crisis in the adult acute mental health service”.
The report also pointed to a lack of strategic planning, again typical of a Labor government. I note Dr Robson’s views that:
… there was a need for greater workforce planning in the mental health space and more stability for psychiatrists to keep and hold their Canberra jobs.
Darlene Cox of the ACT Health Care Consumers’ Association said on radio this morning that the government needs to come up with a new workforce strategy. There is no better example of the Labor government’s strategy-free spending. But do not take Dr Robson’s or Ms Cox’s word for it. Listen to the words of constituents, people who are today attempting, or who in recent times have attempted, to use the health services. Their outcomes are not great.
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