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Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Page: 6222

Ms SAFFIN (Page) (11:01): I am pleased to be able to speak in the health part of the appropriations debate. My question is about regional health infrastructure, but before I get to the specific question I want to talk about some of the significant developments in my seat of Page and in the Northern Rivers-North Coast area. Firstly, one of the things that I really applaud the Minister for Health and Ageing in particular for is her commitment to extending integrated cancer care centres in the regions. We all know the statistics, and the statistics still stand, but they will change over time as these regional integrated cancer care centres get up and running. Indeed, some are already opening. The one in my area is at Lismore Base Hospital. The Minister for Indigenous Health had occasion to be there for the opening.

Mr Snowdon: The joy of!

Ms SAFFIN: That is right. It was a real joy. The minister was also in my electorate when we did a regional hospitals tour over two days.

Mr Snowdon: A great consultation.

Ms SAFFIN: Yes, it was a great consultation with the communities. We did it at the hospitals and brought all the health communities in.

Mr Dutton interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms S Bird ): The member for Page has the call! The member for Page will continue and—

Ms SAFFIN: It is all right, Madam Deputy Speaker; it was friendly banter, so I quite enjoyed it. On the Lismore Base Hospital: before I got elected in 2007 there had been a commitment from the previous government for some $8 million. We agreed to keep that commitment, which we did, and we added an extra $15 million plus. I got another $7 million, I think it was, which meant that the cancer care centre could come on line one year sooner than it would have otherwise. That meant that people did not have to travel as far to have their radiotherapy treatment, which is really significant for better health outcomes and for some of those terrible statistics that show that people in regional, rural and remote areas sometimes die more quickly than those in metropolitan areas, where people can access facilities. It is a rather stark thing to say, but that is a health statistic that we have.

Five hundred and sixty-two million dollars was made available nationwide, and we were able to also get some extra money. We got it for a project called Our House, and that meant that people can actually stay across the road from the integrated cancer care centre that is being redeveloped now. We were fortunate to get $2.6 million and then got some extra money in the budget this year, because when they went to do the redevelopment they found asbestos and termites and it required nearly $1 million to flesh that out. But there have been more than that in terms of my area. We also had provision in the integrated cancer care centre for the second linac, the linear accelerator. We were able to get some money out of the regional money available for the second linac and they are just commissioning that at the moment. It takes quite a few months to set that up, but we went and had a look at it the other day. There is also a PET-CT scanner and an additional MRI. These are just some of the things that we will have within the integrated cancer care centre, which covers a broad area in my region.

There have been other significant developments in my area. There was money available for what we call a MAU, a medical assessment unit, at Lismore Base Hospital. That is really useful in assessment and triage of patients when they first come into the hospital. At Grafton Base Hospital as well for the first time in years money was made available to bring it up to a modern facility. I recently went to the commissioning of the new emergency department and it is just wonderful to see. It is an old hospital and it was one of those that no-one in the health department really wanted to touch for a long time but we got the $18 million there, which is not a lot of money in terms of a hospital, and it was really good value for money. (Time expired)

Mr Dutton: What was the question?

Ms Saffin: It was about regional infrastructure.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will allow the minister to address the points that the member raised.