Just when we thought commonsense was to replace politics and ideology as the main ingredient of the administration of health in ACT, our hopes are dashed. Terry Connolly made such a good start. He sat with the doctors and talked. He made all the right noises about giving a greater say to health professionals and giving more money to the cutting edge (figuratively and literally) as less for administration. He announced the superfluous public-relations section was to go. And so on. The confrontationist, ideological days of his predecessor, Wayne Berry, were gone. Pragmatism and delivery (figuratively and literally) were to take precedence over the public-private guerilla war.
It was too good to be true. On Tuesday, Terry Connolly, announced the ACT was going ahead urgently with the $2.8 million refurbishment of the old Royal Canberra Hospital isolation ward on Acton Peninsula as a hospice. And further he was looking at whether the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital for nursing mothers should be located at Acton, too.
The hospice at Acton was pushed relentlessly by Mr Berry, despite its obvious cost and convenience drawbacks because the Labor Party, capitalising on the unpopularity of the Liberal-dominated Alliance Government’s decision to close Royal Canberra, had promised that Acton Peninsula would be used for health and community facilities.
Surely, that promise has no relevance now. It has been overtaken by both local and national events. Its breach would be welcomed by the great majority of Canberrans, including people who have been pushing for a hospice for years. They would rather a hospice on Acton than no hospice, but their first preference it in a new building near one of the main hospitals. Staff-sharing, pharmacy sharing and proximity of medical help make location near Calvary or Woden more sensible.
Even the ideological objection to the Catholic-run Calvary looks a bit weak in the face of Labor’s rejection of Independent Michael Moore’s euthanasia Bill.
National circumstances make Acton an unsuitable site. The land has an odd status. It is ACT-owned, but it is designated land, which means the Commonwealth, through the National Capital Planning Authority, has to approve all new building work on it. And the NCPA has refused a new build because it wants the site used for a national purpose, perhaps the museum, but perhaps something else. It argues, very reasonably, that Acton in the heart of Canberra is too important a site for a clutter of medical, cheap housing and other community facilities which would be better placed elsewhere. The only reason Acton was not made national land at self-government in 1989 was because it had a hospital on it. Now it does not and the national government wants it for a national purpose.
In the face of that opposition it is a waste of money to spend $2.8 million refurbishing clapped out buildings on Acton. Mr Connolly should locate the hospice near one of the major hospitals. His argument that would tempt high-cost intervention into hopeless cases by medical staff is nonsense. They seem too hard pushed to treat all the needy cases. His argument that a hospice will detract from a national purpose on the site is also illogical. Architects and directors of a major national purpose would prefer a clean site to a cluttered one. All Mr Connolly is doing is lowering his bargaining position with the Commonwealth when it comes to a Acton-for-Kingston land swap.
The ACT is not a sovereign government and never will be. Canberra is the national capital and if the Federal Government has to make a decision to protect Canberra’s national role in this case, well the ACT Government has asked for it.