Ms McCARTHY - 2006-05-02
Can the minister advise how Budget 2006-07 helps build healthier communities through addressing the increasing demand on Territory hospitals?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, the high level of demand on our hospitals, particularly our major hospital, and throughout our hospital network has been obvious for some time. The average increase of 10% per annum of presentations to our emergency departments is a pretty eye-catching figure when you are trying to resource and sustain safe and adequate services for Territorians seeking this sort of help.
The drivers for demand are known: people are presenting at hospital as an alternative because we are very low in GP numbers in the community, and there are high levels of ill-health in our indigenous community.All of those are known factors that make the situation particularly extreme in the Northern Territory, although you will see this demand increase in hospitals all round the country.
We have built into the $780.6m Health budget a strong commitment to the capacity of our hospitals to deal with demand. In fact, $14.1m of that budget is aimed at increasing the ability of our hospitals to deal with patients that present to them. To give members some further detail of what this involves, for Royal Darwin Hospital, base funding has increased to $196m to meet demand. That now budgets the hospital to deal with issues such as the use of overflow beds, and the adjustment of staffing numbers in line with demand being experienced, in other words, the day-to-day operational issues the hospital has to deal with when faced with high demand. We put in six extra beds. These will be funded beds additional to the existing tally in that hospital.
Most important for Royal Darwin Hospital is an allocation of $7.8m recurrent to establish a Rapid Admission and Planning Unit. The RAPU is the leading edge of modernising hospital practice for patient through-flow and the assessment of patients, and arrangements for their care during their stay in hospital through to discharge. The clinician brought this to us as the key initiative that Royal Darwin Hospital needs to take to deal with access and bed lock within the hospital. It is a longer term sustainable solution, rather than simply putting in bed numbers which will be filled almost the next day by doctors referring patients straight into the beds without having a systematic planning and deposition process within the hospitals. We are going to take the Royal Darwin Hospital up to leading edge in hospital and patient management, along with maybe only half a dozen other hospitals in Australia.
We are increasing base funding for Alice Springs Hospital to $97m to meet the same demand factors we have seen in the Royal Darwin Hospital. That will allow the Alice Springs Hospital, within budget, to handle high patient loads through the use of overflow beds, and by adjusting their staffing. We will establish the capacity for 15 extra beds to go into that hospital. They will go into Ward 4, which is currently being refurbished as part of the repair of the appalling mess we were left with. That will be a significant down payment on the 24 beds for that hospital within this term of government, together with the ones we are putting into Darwin.
Tennant Creek, Katherine and Gove hospitals will receive an extra $3.5m to maintain services and to meet demand.
Our hospitals will have their capacities further increased to provide safe, sustainable services to the high levels of presentation they are experiencing from the Territory community.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, the high level of demand on our hospitals, particularly our major hospital, and throughout our hospital network has been obvious for some time. The average increase of 10% per annum of presentations to our emergency departments is a pretty eye-catching figure when you are trying to resource and sustain safe and adequate services for Territorians seeking this sort of help.
The drivers for demand are known: people are presenting at hospital as an alternative because we are very low in GP numbers in the community, and there are high levels of ill-health in our indigenous community.All of those are known factors that make the situation particularly extreme in the Northern Territory, although you will see this demand increase in hospitals all round the country.
We have built into the $780.6m Health budget a strong commitment to the capacity of our hospitals to deal with demand. In fact, $14.1m of that budget is aimed at increasing the ability of our hospitals to deal with patients that present to them. To give members some further detail of what this involves, for Royal Darwin Hospital, base funding has increased to $196m to meet demand. That now budgets the hospital to deal with issues such as the use of overflow beds, and the adjustment of staffing numbers in line with demand being experienced, in other words, the day-to-day operational issues the hospital has to deal with when faced with high demand. We put in six extra beds. These will be funded beds additional to the existing tally in that hospital.
Most important for Royal Darwin Hospital is an allocation of $7.8m recurrent to establish a Rapid Admission and Planning Unit. The RAPU is the leading edge of modernising hospital practice for patient through-flow and the assessment of patients, and arrangements for their care during their stay in hospital through to discharge. The clinician brought this to us as the key initiative that Royal Darwin Hospital needs to take to deal with access and bed lock within the hospital. It is a longer term sustainable solution, rather than simply putting in bed numbers which will be filled almost the next day by doctors referring patients straight into the beds without having a systematic planning and deposition process within the hospitals. We are going to take the Royal Darwin Hospital up to leading edge in hospital and patient management, along with maybe only half a dozen other hospitals in Australia.
We are increasing base funding for Alice Springs Hospital to $97m to meet the same demand factors we have seen in the Royal Darwin Hospital. That will allow the Alice Springs Hospital, within budget, to handle high patient loads through the use of overflow beds, and by adjusting their staffing. We will establish the capacity for 15 extra beds to go into that hospital. They will go into Ward 4, which is currently being refurbished as part of the repair of the appalling mess we were left with. That will be a significant down payment on the 24 beds for that hospital within this term of government, together with the ones we are putting into Darwin.
Tennant Creek, Katherine and Gove hospitals will receive an extra $3.5m to maintain services and to meet demand.
Our hospitals will have their capacities further increased to provide safe, sustainable services to the high levels of presentation they are experiencing from the Territory community.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016