Mr HAMPTON - 2007-05-02
Can the minister advise the House whether Budget 2007-08 will build a healthier Territory, a priority of this Martin government?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Stuart for his question. I did lay on the record this morning that it is a record Health budget this year of $838m, an increase in expenditure of some 73% since we came to government in 2001, particularly in the hospital sector, which has an increase in expenditure of $27.8m. I have already spoken today on some of the issues around the Health budget; however, I take the opportunity of this question to focus on two important issues within our sector.
One of them relates to bed block, and what this government is doing through this budget to alleviate bed block in our hospitals. The second one relates to renal disease, which I know will be of great concern to members who represent bush electorates.
We have announced further beds in Alice Springs Hospital and Royal Darwin Hospital - 12 to be implemented in both institutions this year, bringing the extra beds, as part of our 24 bed election commitment in both hospitals, to 18 at Royal Darwin Hospital and 12 at Alice Springs Hospital. I believe those extra beds, costed at $5.3m fully staffed, will go a long way to reducing issues of bed block.
Similarly, these beds come in tandem with the implementation of the Rapid Admission Planning Unit, which has already gone out to tender and will be implemented and fully constructed, I believe, around August or September of this year. That facilitates the flow through our Accident and Emergency Department at Royal Darwin Hospital, which is a very important strategy. With both of these - the extra beds and the RAPU - that means 130 extra staff in toto; 80 in the unit and 50 for the 24 extra beds, and they will mainly be nurses.
I will briefly touch on the issues around renal disease. This is a government that has consistently invested money to address the issue of renal disease. It is something that this government can be very proud of. It has increased from $12.1m in 2002-03 to $21.3m in 2006-07. All the way along it has been expanding services, and caring for and supporting those with renal disease and end-stage renal failure in the Northern Territory. If you look at the statistics on the graphs, they are very sad graphs, but they also show that, since this government has been investing in combating renal disease across the Territory, the survival times and rates for these patients have been improving to the extent they are now coming to the national average.
We are not only investing significant amounts of money for treatment of end-stage renal disease - $24.4m and this will increase, recurrent funding, to an estimated $30m in 2010-11 - a substantial tranche of money within the budget - but we are also looking to reduce renal disease in the longer term through increased resources into primary health care to delay pre-dialysis patients from getting to that end-stage situation.
We are also looking at putting satellites on remote communities. There was a point made this morning in the Opposition Leader’s speech, talking about all these amounts of money and what it is doing for individual Territorians. I believe what I have just talked about, in the hospital scene, particularly in relation to renal patients, is dipping right down to people who have a major problem. We are showing, through this budget and through the budgets that preceded this and the budgets that are following after, that we are committed to those issues.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Stuart for his question. I did lay on the record this morning that it is a record Health budget this year of $838m, an increase in expenditure of some 73% since we came to government in 2001, particularly in the hospital sector, which has an increase in expenditure of $27.8m. I have already spoken today on some of the issues around the Health budget; however, I take the opportunity of this question to focus on two important issues within our sector.
One of them relates to bed block, and what this government is doing through this budget to alleviate bed block in our hospitals. The second one relates to renal disease, which I know will be of great concern to members who represent bush electorates.
We have announced further beds in Alice Springs Hospital and Royal Darwin Hospital - 12 to be implemented in both institutions this year, bringing the extra beds, as part of our 24 bed election commitment in both hospitals, to 18 at Royal Darwin Hospital and 12 at Alice Springs Hospital. I believe those extra beds, costed at $5.3m fully staffed, will go a long way to reducing issues of bed block.
Similarly, these beds come in tandem with the implementation of the Rapid Admission Planning Unit, which has already gone out to tender and will be implemented and fully constructed, I believe, around August or September of this year. That facilitates the flow through our Accident and Emergency Department at Royal Darwin Hospital, which is a very important strategy. With both of these - the extra beds and the RAPU - that means 130 extra staff in toto; 80 in the unit and 50 for the 24 extra beds, and they will mainly be nurses.
I will briefly touch on the issues around renal disease. This is a government that has consistently invested money to address the issue of renal disease. It is something that this government can be very proud of. It has increased from $12.1m in 2002-03 to $21.3m in 2006-07. All the way along it has been expanding services, and caring for and supporting those with renal disease and end-stage renal failure in the Northern Territory. If you look at the statistics on the graphs, they are very sad graphs, but they also show that, since this government has been investing in combating renal disease across the Territory, the survival times and rates for these patients have been improving to the extent they are now coming to the national average.
We are not only investing significant amounts of money for treatment of end-stage renal disease - $24.4m and this will increase, recurrent funding, to an estimated $30m in 2010-11 - a substantial tranche of money within the budget - but we are also looking to reduce renal disease in the longer term through increased resources into primary health care to delay pre-dialysis patients from getting to that end-stage situation.
We are also looking at putting satellites on remote communities. There was a point made this morning in the Opposition Leader’s speech, talking about all these amounts of money and what it is doing for individual Territorians. I believe what I have just talked about, in the hospital scene, particularly in relation to renal patients, is dipping right down to people who have a major problem. We are showing, through this budget and through the budgets that preceded this and the budgets that are following after, that we are committed to those issues.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016