Page 2840 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 14 August 2018
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I think that the way in which carers of people in the adult mental health system are treated is appalling, and I think that it leads to worse outcomes because of the lack of continuity of care, the lack of understanding of the circumstances and the lack of ability for people to make a real difference, usually in children’s lives, because they just cannot get basic information.
On a personal note, I welcome the recommendations of the estimates committee regarding cystic fibrosis:
The Committee recommends the ACT Government undertake work to consider the viability of moving cystic fibrosis clinic to Canberra Hospital to ensure Canberrans with cystic fibrosis are able to access the full suite of tests and allied health professionals they require.
The Committee recommends the ACT Government continue to work with Cystic Fibrosis ACT to improve support for people in the ACT living with cystic fibrosis.
There is a clinical review of cystic fibrosis which has been bouncing around for some time but we have not seen it tabled and we have not seen a government response to that.
I do not want to denigrate the current cystic fibrosis clinic that is run but it is remote from the hospital. It must be very time consuming for the doctors and staff at those clinics that they have to come from the hospital to the Belconnen clinic and backwards and forwards. There are issues related to transport and the like which have been raised with me by the salaried medical officers about how difficult it is to access transport. It does actually cut significantly into people’s time that they have to move from their offices in the hospital to an office in another facility.
In saying that, I do know that cystic fibrosis clinics have improved substantially over the past few years, and my children and others in this town are beneficiaries of those. But I would encourage a more streamlined system. That would apply to a whole range of clinics for chronic diseases.
One of the other issues that I constantly hear complaints about is outpatient clinics at the Canberra Hospital, the poor scheduling, the inappropriate waits that people have. Often people are told to turn up at 9 o’clock but the people that they are going to see, the doctors and allied health people, do not turn up at 9 o’clock. They might have to sit there for three or four hours more than they had planned. And often when people are told to turn up to outpatient clinics they are told to make sure that they park in the long stay park and expect that their stays will be a number of hours. “Make sure you park in the four-hour park because it’ll take you that long, if you’re lucky.” This can be quite onerous on people who have poor health. The facilities at some of these outpatients clinics are somewhat run down and are very difficult for elderly and infirm people to negotiate.
As I said previously, the health budget covers the largest single contribution from ACT taxpayers. It is much higher than any other contribution from taxpayers
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