Page 1680 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 15 May 2019
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commitment, not just words, but a personal commitment that the words here will be put into practice.
This is a most important issue. I am constantly confronted by people who tell me how life changing access to hydrotherapy is. People who were almost completely immobile have been able to resume walking and other physical activities which they thought were beyond them.
Some people have become so mobile that they have actually become volunteers for hydrotherapy. They are there helping other people achieve the great gains that they have made. Every time we allow someone to go to a hydrotherapy session and get those benefits, we are keeping them out of hospital; we are keeping them off painkillers; we are keeping them perhaps another six months away from a knee replacement. If they have a knee replacement, they are better able to recover. There are all of these things. The benefits are considerable. I have not costed them.
The government certainly does not seem to understand what they are, and therefore has not costed them. There is considerable benefit in keeping open these facilities and doing what we can to expand them to meet the need. We need to understand the need because suddenly we have had a 40 per cent uptake in people who want access to Arthritis ACT’s programs. There is something going on. Maybe it is just that we have been talking more about hydrotherapy. We need to understand what is causing that.
I commend the motion today. I welcome the change of heart from the government. When the minister speaks, the minister needs to make real commitments, not to me but to the people of the ACT who use these services. I commend the motion to the Assembly.
MS FITZHARRIS (Yerrabi—Minister for Health and Wellbeing, Minister for Higher Education, Minister for Medical and Health Research, Minister for Transport and Minister for Vocational Education and Skills) (11.05): I thank Mrs Dunne for the opportunity to discuss the motion and welcome many members of the Arthritis ACT community and the broader community here to be part of this conversation, as it has been continuing for some time. It was a welcome opportunity to chat with Mrs Dunne about my amendment to this motion, and I hope we can agree on that. Moving an amendment is by definition a commitment from me and the government to ensure that both the words and the spirit of the amended motion are followed up by the ACT government. I am possibly anticipating an amendment to my amendment, but anyhow.
Of course I recognise, as Mrs Dunne indicated, that users of both hydrotherapy and warm-water exercise experience significant health benefits and also considerable wellbeing benefits to their daily lives. ACT Health, Canberra Health Services and I understand the wellbeing benefits in addition to the physical benefits that come from accessing the service.
I will provide some background, some of it going back to prior to my time as the minister. Certainly the advice to me was that there was considerable consultation at the time the decision was made to build a subacute rehabilitation hospital, a dedicated
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