Ms MARTIN - 1999-04-21
I refer the minister to the Chief Minister’s publication promoting the privatisation of our hospitals. The Chief Minister told Territorians that under the CLP our hospitals have - and this is directly from that document - ‘dated and dysfunctional facilities’. Will the minister advise what facilities the Chief Minister was referring to in that document?
ANSWER
Mr Reed: He has a statement on it.
Mr DUNHAM: Yes, Mr Speaker, I do have a statement on it and I am happy to answer the question.
The Leader of the Opposition comes from Sydney. In Sydney she accessed all sorts of health services that probably look a bit different to what we have up here. Royal Darwin Hospital is our busiest health site. It treats lots and lots of people. It has high costs, high levels of acuity and high levels of throughput.
If you look at that hospital, you can see that you could probably do it differently. If you go to places like Tennant and you see the fact that Aboriginal people have access to the outside much more easily than they do at Royal Darwin, because it’s on a single level, you could say that maybe we could do it differently at Royal Darwin. So yes, there are facilities that are outdated.
In another month or so, the hospital will be 20 years old. It was designed from plans that were probably about a decade or so older. Yes, there’s great scope for modernising our facilities. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will participate in this, because when we talked about it on the last occasion she pleaded with us: ‘Please, please, don’t bring private people up here. They’re all nasty people who are profiteers. If you don’t we can surely parade out other options that are progressive’. I look forward to the debate because I’m sure the Leader of the Opposition will give us a whole series of options as to how we can improve our system, yet keep it as a national and social-type system of the ilk that Labor would like.
ANSWER
Mr Reed: He has a statement on it.
Mr DUNHAM: Yes, Mr Speaker, I do have a statement on it and I am happy to answer the question.
The Leader of the Opposition comes from Sydney. In Sydney she accessed all sorts of health services that probably look a bit different to what we have up here. Royal Darwin Hospital is our busiest health site. It treats lots and lots of people. It has high costs, high levels of acuity and high levels of throughput.
If you look at that hospital, you can see that you could probably do it differently. If you go to places like Tennant and you see the fact that Aboriginal people have access to the outside much more easily than they do at Royal Darwin, because it’s on a single level, you could say that maybe we could do it differently at Royal Darwin. So yes, there are facilities that are outdated.
In another month or so, the hospital will be 20 years old. It was designed from plans that were probably about a decade or so older. Yes, there’s great scope for modernising our facilities. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will participate in this, because when we talked about it on the last occasion she pleaded with us: ‘Please, please, don’t bring private people up here. They’re all nasty people who are profiteers. If you don’t we can surely parade out other options that are progressive’. I look forward to the debate because I’m sure the Leader of the Opposition will give us a whole series of options as to how we can improve our system, yet keep it as a national and social-type system of the ilk that Labor would like.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016