Page 1170 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 2 April 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Health Directorate—separation of functions
MISS C BURCH: My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. On 30 March 2019, the Canberra Times published an article co-authored by former Labor Chief Minister Jon Stanhope. The article refers to the decision to separate the policy and service delivery arms of ACT Health, noting that it mirrors a previous structure which the Labor government subsequently abandoned. The article observes:
It is difficult to see how a return to a failed structure of the past is the way to the future.
Minister, is the quality of the advice you are receiving from the two arms of health giving you more flexibility with continuing your strategy of plausible deniability, a strategy that is clearly not working?
MS FITZHARRIS: No.
MISS C BURCH: Minister, has the separation of ACT Health and Canberra Health Services meant that you were even less aware of what is happening in our public health system than you were before?
MS FITZHARRIS: No.
MRS DUNNE: Minister, if you are as aware as you say, how is it that we did not know, until someone sent an email at the weekend, of this claim of unauthorised vaginal examination?
MS FITZHARRIS: Because, as I indicated in my first response on this matter, in correcting the record from the previous sittings, a further review was underway. I will have received that review and I would have updated the Assembly.
National disability insurance scheme—mental health
MS LEE: My question is to the Minister for Disability. Minister, I refer to a study by the ANU published in Australasian Psychiatry, which found that one-third of ACT mental health provider organisations interviewed did not have guaranteed funding beyond the next 12 months and that nine of the 12 mental health services that commented on the impact of the NDIS expressed deep concern with problems with planning and other issues. Minister, why are two-thirds of ACT mental health NDIS providers having trouble with planning for the longer term and with retention of staff?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Ms Lee for her question. As she knows, the issues that people with psychosocial disability have had navigating the NDIS have been a source of ongoing concern for the ACT government and ongoing advocacy from the ACT government to both the commonwealth government and the National Disability Insurance Agency. Indeed, the ACT Office for Disability has been leading work nationally on the interface between the NDIS and mainstream health and mental health services and the experience of people with psychosocial disability.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video