Page 2730 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 13 August 2019

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We understand how much the users of the Canberra Hospital hydrotherapy pool have benefitted from this asset over the years and how emotionally attached many people are to it. But it is not fair to these Canberrans that we continue to argue about the facts to create confusion and anxiety rather accepting the reality and finding a path forward.

The ACT government maintain our commitment to working with Arthritis ACT to ensure hydrotherapy pool users’ needs can be met across the ACT. I thank Arthritis ACT and its members for the positive way in which they engaged with the Nous Group consultants for this work and for their attendance, interest and feedback at last week’s briefing. We will ensure that the process going forward engages pool users proactively and constructively, based on a shared understanding of the issues and with a primary focus on their needs.

I move:

That the Assembly take note of the ministerial statement.

MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (10.19): I note that the minister has presented a statement which indicates that she learnt nothing from the consultation last week. She is very big on talking about consultation, but what the minister heard last week from the arthritis community—one of the users of hydrotherapy—is that the services are essential and ongoing; there is no end to the need for service. In a sense, there is a fairly limitless supply of people who would benefit from hydrotherapy services.

I note—and I will encourage the minister to do this tomorrow—that the minister apologised to the hydrotherapy community for the lack of communication and understanding manifested by ACT Health in this whole process. But I am not convinced—and I do not think Mrs Jones is yet convinced—that anyone has learnt from the process.

It is quite clear—and it was quite clearly articulated last week by the Nous consultant—that people have been speaking at cross-purposes. Mrs Jones and I and our staff clearly understood what had been articulated by Arthritis ACT about their needs, and it is astounding that the highly paid professionals in ACT Health could not similarly understand the needs expressed by Arthritis ACT. It is not rocket science; it is simply about health needs.

The previous minister used to talk about hydrotherapy and warm water based exercise, which sounded completely and utterly condescending, I have to say. The new minister has come up with a different nomenclature, but we are talking about hydrotherapy. It is therapy in water. That is what it means. Whether it is rehabilitation or ongoing health maintenance, it does not matter—it is hydrotherapy. The minister can shake her head and say, “Mrs Dunne doesn’t understand,” but that is what hydrotherapy means.

For years the ACT government has taken the narrow view that hydrotherapy is associated with six or eight weeks of post-operative rehabilitation and that is it. Well, it is not it, and that is the whole point. This government has successively, over years, failed to understand the needs of people in the community beyond postoperative rehabilitation.


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