Greens Member for Brindabella, Amanda Bresnan MLA, will introduce a motion into the legislative assembly on Wednesday to address the unacceptably high levels of wood smoke in the Tuggeranong Valley.

“Wood smoke pollution continues to be a problem in the Valley and the ACT Government must step up and expand on it’s commitment to the Wood Heater Replacement program,” Ms Bresnan said today.

“The tiny particles from wood smoke create a great deal of discomfort when breathed into the lungs. For people who suffer from respiratory and heart problems,  especially asthma,  this can be very serious.

“This motion recognises that wood smoke pollution is a serious problem and that the ACT has been lagging behind other states in addressing it.

“I acknowledge that the Government has been working  to  address the build up of wood smoke in Tuggeranong  through the Don’t Burn Tonight campaign and ACT Wood Heater Replacement Program.

“These programs have had some success,  but the Government hasn’t been active enough in promoting them or using them as a tool to educate people about the impacts of wood smoke.

“The Greens are calling on the government  to make air quality information publicly available , and we are pleased that the Government will look at making this information available on a daily or weekly basis.

“By providing information through more targeted education programs people can make more considered decisions about their heating, health and environment.

“The Greens are committed to addressing the health and environmental impact of excessive wood smoke in the  Tuggeranong Valley,” Ms Bresnan said.

ACT Greens Health spokesperson Amanda Bresnan MLA has today expressed her support for the ACT Government to pursue compulsory acquisition of Calvary Public Hospital, given the Minister for Health’s indications that the ACT Government will still go ahead with investing funds in that facility.

“The Greens have always supported the purchase of Calvary Public Hospital. It would be in the best interests of ACT taxpayers and health care consumers if the northside public hosipital was under public ownership,” Ms Bresnan said today.

“Early indications from the Minister for Health are that the ACT Government is likely to invest $200m in Calvary Public Hospital, despite no longer being able to buy it. If that is the case, the Greens believe the ACT Government should consider pursuing compulsory acquisition of the Hospital.”

“The Greens have discussed compulsory acquisition with the Chief Solicitor and former head of ACT Health and believe it is legally possible.”

“We were working to broker an outcome that could address the concerns raised by the community about the sale of the Hospice being included in the deal. You don’t solve one problem by creating another,” Ms Bresnan said.

After more than 12 months of inaction on much needed regulation of the Solarium industry, the Greens will bring on a private members bill to ensure safety standards.

ACT Greens Health spokesperson Amanda Bresnan MLA said the ACT should not have to wait for the Ministerial Health Council to approve tighter solarium regulations any longer.

“Solariums can be a serious health risk, with users facing possible consequences such as skin cancer. The Health Minister acknowledges these issues, but has been done nothing when it comes to cleaning up the solarium industry,” Ms Bresnan said today.

“Over a year ago (27 January 2009) the Chief Minister said that if we didn’t get movement on this issue in a timely manner through the Ministerial Health Council, the ACT would go ahead and institute the changes itself. I think the time for this to happen is now well overdue.”

“Other states like Victoria, NSW and WA have gone ahead already and instituted the changes. Victoria is the model we should be following, and they have had the greatest decline in solarium numbers.”

“While the ACT Government has been waiting for the Ministerial Health Council, the number of solairums being used in the ACT has risen. We are the only jurisdiction that has had a rise in solarium numbers and that is concerning,” Ms Bresnan said.

ACT Greens Health spokesperson Amanda Bresnan MLA has today indicated that the Greens will not support ACT Government’s current proposal regarding the Calvary Public Hospital and Clare Holland House.

The Greens will not support the proposal as is, and have identified key aspects of the deal that must be addressed.

“The Greens believe public health care facilities should be in public hands,” Ms Bresnan said today.

“Ideally we would like to see Clare Holland House and Calvary Public Hospital under government ownership.”

“The Greens can’t support the Government’s proposal in its current form given the concerns raised by the public about Clare Holland House and palliative care services.”

The major points of concerns for the ACT Greens are:

• Little Company of Mary (LCM) being sold a 99 year crown lease over ACT’s only hospice;

• The ACT Government commitment to providing LCM with a 30 year contract for the provision of both hospice care and community palliative care; and

• Uncertainty about the projected demand levels for hospice and community palliative care into the future and how to best service this need.

“The ACT Government needs to address these community concerns if this deal is to go ahead.”

“The Greens have taken a number of steps to try and de-couple the Government’s purchase of Calvary Hospital from the sale of Clare Holland House to LCM, including moving a motion in the Assembly and looking into the ability of the Government to undertake a compulsory acquisition of Calvary Public Hospital.”

“We do not however have the resources of the ACT Government, and there is onus on the ALP to stand up on behalf of the ACT people. If the ACT Government did this, it would have our support,” Ms Bresnan said.

Calvary deal can respect Canberra community

The debate about whether to pursue the ACT Government’s purchase of the Calvary Hospital is becoming more heated, and unsurprisingly, more contentious, as the people of Canberra come to grips with the dilemma that they are being sold by the ACT Government and the owners of Calvary Public Hospital, the Little Company of Mary Health Care (LCM).

Both parties to the sale have insisted that the purchase of the hospital, a 222 public bed facility that services north Canberra, is conditional on the sale to LCM of the ACT Hospice, Clare Holland House, Canberra’s only Hospice facility that is much-valued by the community and one of the jewels in the crown of ACT public health care.

In doing so, they are insisting on an outcome that will not deliver the most optimal health care for the people of Canberra, and they are ignoring the wishes of the community with a deal that locks in palliative care services in the ACT for the next 30 years.

The ACT Greens have clearly articulated our preferred outcome on this issue: the purchase of Calvary Hospital should not be linked to the sale of the Hospice. We have been clear in our position that public health facilities should be in public hands, and so support the Government ownership of all public hospitals. We also sympathise strongly with those who state that the Hospice has been developed by the community, for the community and should stay in Government hands.

In putting this position, the Greens have been the only party in the Assembly to represent the majority view of the ACT community, as well as key groups such as the Health Care Consumers and the ACT Branch of the Australian Nursing Federation. It is somewhat ironic that in doing so, we not only find ourselves in the cross-fire from those who wish to keep each facility in public hands, but are also dealing with inaccurate aspersions about our position.

This is a complex issue and it is deserving of decision makers not only reflecting carefully on all the options, but also consulting with a broad range of stakeholders and problem solving to achieve the best outcome for the people of the ACT.

We are not shy about taking our time on this decision, nor indeed on any complex policy issue.  As the purchase of the hospital is not imminent, there is no need to rush into rubber stamping the Government’s plan, or take an immediate oppositional position such as the Canberra Liberals.

Contrary to some commentator’s perceptions, the Greens have been actively engaged in pursuing an outcome for the Calvary/Hospice deal that we believe broadly reflects the community’s view. In the Assembly we put a motion calling on the parties involved to decouple the purchase of the Hospital from the sale of the Hospice – unfortunately neither the Liberals or the Government supported that motion.

The Government’s failure to support that motion does raise a question as to why they are not prepared to stand up to LCM and be clear about what is and is not acceptable to the ACT community. Having now got a clearer idea of that through their own community consultation process and by monitoring the public debate, their intransigence on this issue is of some concern.

LCM have also engaged in negotiations with all the ruthless calculation of a large multi-national, paying little heed to the concerns of the community in their pursuit of a  comfortable niche in Canberra’s public health landscape.

It’s a cheap shot for our political opponents to accuse us of not being able to take tough decisions.  We know that there will be no avoiding the tough decision if the final proposal that the Government puts on the table still includes the sale of the Hospice. I and my colleagues are unapologetic for making this tough decision in a thoughtful and informed manner, knowing that we have explored every avenue, listened to all stakeholders, and pushed to get the very best outcome for the people of Canberra that we can. Those who elected us would expect no less.

Amanda Bresnan MLA is the ACT Greens Health spokesperson.

ACT Greens Health spokesperson Amanda Bresnan MLA will today place on the ACT Legislative Assembly’s notice paper a motion requesting Little Company of Mary (LCM) to reconsider the conditional link of Clare Holland House to its sale of Calvary Hospital.

“I am proposing that we as an Assembly, as the elected representatives of the ACT people, call on this private health care provider to respect what it is the ACT people need and want, and remove any link between the sales of the Hospital and Hospice,” Ms Bresnan said today. 

“It has come though quite clearly from public consultations that; while there is support for the Government’s purchase of Calvary Public Hospital, there isn’t support for the sale of Clare Holland House to LCM.

“LCM have said until now that they will only sell Calvary Hospital to the ACT Government if they can purchase Clare Holland House. We need to ask LCM to reconsider this position, given what has come out of public consultations.

The motion, if passed, will require the Minister for Health to write to the Board of LCM Health Care, asking them to reconsider including the Hospice in any negotiations over Calvary Hospital.

“We believe that LCM, who have provided excellent health care in Canberra for so long, will take on board the concerns of the community and that’s why we should lobby them to change the situation,” Ms Bresnan said.

ACT Greens Health spokesperson, Amanda Bresnan MLA, welcomed the Federal Government’s preventative health report released yesterday, but argued that the value of the report will be measured by what decisive action the government actually commits to.

“There are many recommendations in this report that have been championed by key community organisations, and a feature of Greens policies, for years,” Ms Bresnan said today.

“It was great to see the widespread acknowledgement of the damage that advertising does by encouraging the unsafe consumption of alcohol and junk food. Perhaps now we can get some real national action on cultural change.”

“Calling for voluntary action by the advertising industry is a soft approach, particularly when the industry is still denying any link between childhood obesity and its promotion of junk food (TV audiences might remember how miserably the ABC’s Hollowmen failed when they took on the junk food challenge.)

“It was also pleasing to see the connection being made between healthy living and how we plan our cities.  Perhaps we might see some Commonwealth investment in public transport in support of that, and a more enthusiastic local commitment to walkable, child friendly planning.”

“This is simply a report to government which will be considered in the lead up to the next federal election, and so it’s hardest hitting recommendations may not get up.

“I am also disappointed that so much of the report is about shifting awareness, rather than delivering service.

“I am also concerned at the lack of sophistication on some fronts, particularly in complex areas like mental health and addiction.

“Rather than trying to talk people out of smoking when they are suffering an episode of mental illness, as is this report suggests, perhaps it could recommend funding for Quit programs for people to take up when they are well,” Ms Bresnan said.

ACT Greens Health spokesperson, Amanda Bresnan MLA today released a discussion paper on how the ACT can progress to the next paradigm in mental health services.

“When the mental illness institutions were closed down, people suffering from a severe mental illness were put out into the community with very little help. As a result, we now see them going in and out of hospital on a regular basis, and going from crisis to crisis.” Ms Bresnan said.

“To progress to the next paradigm in mental health services, we need to provide assistance to a person when they are recovering from a severe episode of mental illness. We need to do it were they live and where they work.”

The ACT Greens mental health discussion paper, entitled My Life, My Community provides 25 recommendations on how assistance to people recovering from a severe episode of mental illness can be provided via housing, employment, general healthcare, and case management.

“We also need to do what we can to help them maintain their health, and prevent the next episode. We can do this by making sure they are part of a community, and their housing and employment conditions are secure and stable.”

“Too often a person with a mental illness can fall through the gaps between different Government departments and community organisations, so we need to make sure they have the one case manager that co-ordinates all those different services for them.” Ms Bresnan said.

The paper recommends major steps towards implementing best practise in mental health policy reform and reaching the mental health funding targets set in the Parliamentary Agreement.

The My Life, My Community discussion paper is available here.

ACT Greens candidate for Brindabella, Amanda Bresnan, today congratulated the Liberal Party, who closed so many Community Health Centres last time they were in power, for their apparent reversal in policy.

“There are two big unknowns with the Liberal GP pledge:

1. Will 3 centres address the core problem of the geographic contraction of Canberra’s health services?

2. After so many years of supporting a corporate health ideology, can we believe them?” Ms Bresnan said.

“These overnight GP Clinics are welcome, but are only one part of the health system, and can’t replace the value of community health practices like the recently closed Wanniassa.

“With Wanniassa absent from the announcement, it’s clear the tough questions about how we stop the next closure are not being addressed by either major party.

“Personalised care, from a local GP provides the benefit of a Doctor-Patient relationship, built up over many years. It can’t be replaced by the quick-fix of a few interstate doctors working night shifts.

“Having Greens in the Assembly will mean the next ACT Government is held accountable for resourcing GPs adequately, safeguarding Community Health Centres in the long-term.” Ms Bresnan said