Mrs FINOCCHIARO - 2016-05-24
The Country Liberal government has just announced two major new health services for the Northern Territory. Cardiothoracic and neurosurgical services will now be provided at Royal Darwin Hospital. Can you please tell us more about these services and how they will help strengthen our community?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I am particularly proud, as the Northern Territory Health minister, to introduce the expansion of these services. Some 600 people travel every year away from the Northern Territory to ports interstate to have complex neurosurgical and cardiothoracic procedures performed. This averages out at a cost of $11 000 per patient. Some patients can travel on the economy seat of an aircraft, but others have to be moved by Careflight, which is an expensive exercise.
At $11 000 per patient, that offers up savings of $6.6m. It is not a great leap in this budget, and, with careful fiscal planning, we have determined that with $8.3m, incorporating that $6.6m, we can expand cardiothoracic services in the Northern Territory. This is a great result.
We are talking about expansion from merely being able to do things like stents to full valve replacements. We will be able to deal with back and nervous issues that normally would see people travelling to other jurisdictions. It is not only good for the patients but for the families of patients who have to travel with them, with all the subsequent inconvenience. This is what good governance brings about.
Labor has announced it wants to shut down the Royal Darwin Hospital over some indeterminate period of time, without giving us a forward plan. Its idea of a future in the Territory is one where it makes stuff up as it goes along. Who will Territorians trust at the next election to deliver ever-improving health services rather than the blind grasping in the dark we see from Labor members opposite?
I heard the Treasurer talk about ticker earlier, and others talk about spine. This government has ticker and a spine. If the Labor opposition ever develops a bit of ticker, we will be able to put in the valve. If the Labor opposition ever develops a spine, we will be able to install the spinal cord.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I am particularly proud, as the Northern Territory Health minister, to introduce the expansion of these services. Some 600 people travel every year away from the Northern Territory to ports interstate to have complex neurosurgical and cardiothoracic procedures performed. This averages out at a cost of $11 000 per patient. Some patients can travel on the economy seat of an aircraft, but others have to be moved by Careflight, which is an expensive exercise.
At $11 000 per patient, that offers up savings of $6.6m. It is not a great leap in this budget, and, with careful fiscal planning, we have determined that with $8.3m, incorporating that $6.6m, we can expand cardiothoracic services in the Northern Territory. This is a great result.
We are talking about expansion from merely being able to do things like stents to full valve replacements. We will be able to deal with back and nervous issues that normally would see people travelling to other jurisdictions. It is not only good for the patients but for the families of patients who have to travel with them, with all the subsequent inconvenience. This is what good governance brings about.
Labor has announced it wants to shut down the Royal Darwin Hospital over some indeterminate period of time, without giving us a forward plan. Its idea of a future in the Territory is one where it makes stuff up as it goes along. Who will Territorians trust at the next election to deliver ever-improving health services rather than the blind grasping in the dark we see from Labor members opposite?
I heard the Treasurer talk about ticker earlier, and others talk about spine. This government has ticker and a spine. If the Labor opposition ever develops a bit of ticker, we will be able to put in the valve. If the Labor opposition ever develops a spine, we will be able to install the spinal cord.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016