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Other Parliamentary SpeechesThis page is dedicated to Peter's speeches during parliament that do not fall under Questions or Questions without notice. They range from debating legislation, reporting on events or issues in his seat of Southport and his Ministerial Statements.
Gold Coast Hospital |
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| Posted by Administrator (admin) on Nov 11 2003 |
| Other Speeches >> |
Mr LAWLOR (Southport- ALP) (7.22 p. m.): Recently the Premier, Peter Beattie, and Health Minister, Wendy Edmond, announced the establishment of a major new cardiac service at the Gold Coast Hospital. Construction work on a $7 million cardiac catheter service will start in the new year, with it due to be fully staffed and operational by September 2004. The government will fund the Gold Coast Hospital to employ up to 16 additional staff for the new service, and this will include four doctors, nine nurses and a radiographer. This is great news for the Gold Coast residents as Queensland Health research shows that up to 1,200 patients a year will no longer have to travel to the Princess AlexandraHospital in Brisbane to have the extent of their heart condition diagnosed.
Patients will be able to access state-of-the-art investigation and treatment at Southport. The executive director of internal medicine, Dr John Gerrard, described the Premier'sannouncement as 'without a doubt one of the most important to be made in health in Gold Coast in the last decade'. Heart disease is the single leading cause of death in Queensland to date. Dr Gerrard continued 'what the Premier has announced is the establishment of a state-of-the-art facility at the Gold Coast Hospital for the investigation, prevention and treatment of heart disease'.
The Gold Coast is now a major health hub, with the state successfully lobbying for the establishment of medical schools and a dental school there. The Gold Coast Hospital is now well on the way to becoming one of Australia's leading teaching hospitals, and this will be a huge benefit to the people of the Gold Coast. On the subject of the hospital, official figures for the June quarter this year show that patients needing urgent and semiurgent operations at the Gold Coast Hospital receive them in the recommended times. More than 98 out of every 100 people needing an urgent- that is, category 1- operation at the Gold Coast Hospital received it within the 30- ay period recommended by doctors, and 95 out of 100 people needing semiurgent- that is, category 2- operations at the Gold Coast Hospital received it within the 90-day period recommended by doctors. Contrast this record with that of the Borbidge government. Six years ago the government, of which Mr Springborg was a member, believed it could do no better than aim to give 60 out of 100 category 2 patients their operations within the 90 days recommended by doctors. A cabinet submission shows that, in January 1997, 38.5 per cent of category 2 patients waited too long for surgery and that by December 1997 the situation had become worse, with 40.5 per cent waiting too long.
In February 1998 the coalition government, having seen waiting list times blow out to more than 40 per cent of patients waiting too long, gave up on the target of trying to treat 95 per cent of category 2 patients within the clinically recommended 90 days. That cabinet decided that in future the government would aim to treat 60 per cent of category 2 patients within 90 days and publish this new target in the government's state social development strategy. We returned to a target of 95 per cent of category 2 patients receiving their operations within 90 days. The fact that our hospitals have managed this tremendous turnaround is a great credit to them and to the Beattie government. Last changed: [PUBLISHED_DATE] at 10:00 AM
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