Dr LIM - 2006-02-22
Last week, you told Territorians that you would keep your promises. Current elective surgery waiting lists are now well over 3000 across the Territory. In your Building Healthy Hospitals policy, you promised a Labor government would ‘reduce hospital waiting lists’. You have had 1648 days to keep this promise and reduce waiting lists. Is it not the case that your government has not reduced waiting lists but, in fact, has substantially increased elective surgery waiting lists? How many more days will it take for you to keep this promise, or was this just another opportune election promise that was never going to happen?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I will refer this question to the Minister for Health, where it appropriately should go. If we want to do a little history lesson, we found our health services in an appalling state. This was the legacy of 27 years of Country Liberal Party government. There was no question that our health system needed additional funds, and we have increased the funds to our health system by 43% …
Ms Carney: And the waiting lists?
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms MARTIN: If the Opposition Leader wants to hear the answer then she should not interject.
Right across our health system, something like $150m additional has gone into our health system. We are always concerned about waiting lists. We have grown the number of specialists available. That will, of course, increase waiting lists because they were not available previously. We have done a number of things that provide a much greater service to Territorians, and we are proud of that; that is exactly what we are here to do.
Of course, we would love to not have waiting lists. However, they are a fact of life and we will continue to manage them. For specifics on the waiting …
Ms Carney: A fact of life! You promised to reduce them. You just tell porkies.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, Leader of the Opposition!
Dr Lim: An elderly lady waiting for a hip replacement a fact of life, that is disgraceful.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, member for Greatorex!
Ms MARTIN: For specific details about the current waiting lists, I refer that, quite appropriately, to the Minister for Health.
Dr TOYNE (Health): Madam Speaker, it is good to have a question I can tackle in my portfolio instead of it always going to the Chief Minister. With these tactics, you are not going to get detailed information doing that.
The way elective surgery waiting lists oscillate is related to how busy our emergency departments are. The emergency departments of both of our major hospitals have been very significantly expanded during our time in government, with some $6.5m of additional staffing, along with capital works and additional beds into ED in Darwin; and $1m of additional staffing into Alice Springs ED, as well as $11m into the Intensive Care Unit/High Dependency Unit in that hospital. We are doing what would be expected of any government in giving ourselves maximum capacity within the emergency department areas of critical care.
For those who are not familiar with the way hospital dynamics work, you deal with the emergency cases before you then schedule the elective cases. We are doing that in a time of an extremely high demand for emergency treatment. In fact, plotting the presentations to both those emergency departments since last November through to the present time, presentations have not abated one iota, meaning the staff and the capacity of our emergency departments - our surgeons, anaesthetists, and specialists - are fully occupied with a very high demand period in ED at a time of the year where we also have change-over of nursing staff. There are many reasons why we are not getting to elective surgery right now at this time of the year. As soon as that abates, and as soon as we replace the staff, as we do at the start of every year, we will resume elective surgery.
Having dealt with all of that additional demand, elective surgery waiting lists, as the member pointed out, are in the region of 3000. They were, in fact, down from the numbers we were getting early to mid last year; we have made some inroads. We have held our ground through a period of very high demand into emergency departments, and we will start working on those lists into the year from this point on.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I will refer this question to the Minister for Health, where it appropriately should go. If we want to do a little history lesson, we found our health services in an appalling state. This was the legacy of 27 years of Country Liberal Party government. There was no question that our health system needed additional funds, and we have increased the funds to our health system by 43% …
Ms Carney: And the waiting lists?
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms MARTIN: If the Opposition Leader wants to hear the answer then she should not interject.
Right across our health system, something like $150m additional has gone into our health system. We are always concerned about waiting lists. We have grown the number of specialists available. That will, of course, increase waiting lists because they were not available previously. We have done a number of things that provide a much greater service to Territorians, and we are proud of that; that is exactly what we are here to do.
Of course, we would love to not have waiting lists. However, they are a fact of life and we will continue to manage them. For specifics on the waiting …
Ms Carney: A fact of life! You promised to reduce them. You just tell porkies.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, Leader of the Opposition!
Dr Lim: An elderly lady waiting for a hip replacement a fact of life, that is disgraceful.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, member for Greatorex!
Ms MARTIN: For specific details about the current waiting lists, I refer that, quite appropriately, to the Minister for Health.
Dr TOYNE (Health): Madam Speaker, it is good to have a question I can tackle in my portfolio instead of it always going to the Chief Minister. With these tactics, you are not going to get detailed information doing that.
The way elective surgery waiting lists oscillate is related to how busy our emergency departments are. The emergency departments of both of our major hospitals have been very significantly expanded during our time in government, with some $6.5m of additional staffing, along with capital works and additional beds into ED in Darwin; and $1m of additional staffing into Alice Springs ED, as well as $11m into the Intensive Care Unit/High Dependency Unit in that hospital. We are doing what would be expected of any government in giving ourselves maximum capacity within the emergency department areas of critical care.
For those who are not familiar with the way hospital dynamics work, you deal with the emergency cases before you then schedule the elective cases. We are doing that in a time of an extremely high demand for emergency treatment. In fact, plotting the presentations to both those emergency departments since last November through to the present time, presentations have not abated one iota, meaning the staff and the capacity of our emergency departments - our surgeons, anaesthetists, and specialists - are fully occupied with a very high demand period in ED at a time of the year where we also have change-over of nursing staff. There are many reasons why we are not getting to elective surgery right now at this time of the year. As soon as that abates, and as soon as we replace the staff, as we do at the start of every year, we will resume elective surgery.
Having dealt with all of that additional demand, elective surgery waiting lists, as the member pointed out, are in the region of 3000. They were, in fact, down from the numbers we were getting early to mid last year; we have made some inroads. We have held our ground through a period of very high demand into emergency departments, and we will start working on those lists into the year from this point on.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016