Canterbury Hospital

Mrs SKINNER: I direct a question without notice to the Minister for Health. Can the Minister explain why Canterbury Hospital, which the Premier described only weeks ago as "state of the art", has closed 58 operating sessions for 13 weeks, resulting in hundreds of patients having to wait even longer for surgery, as detailed in leaked internal documents?

Mr KNOWLES: The leaked internal documents are in fact the minutes of a surgery meeting, from a member of the department of surgery. I can inform the House that, contrary to the fiefdom mentality being displayed opposite, Canterbury Hospital is part of the hospital network. Two years ago a decision was made by the former Minister for Health to redevelop part of that network, including redevelopment of palliative care services at Concord Hospital, a $61 million redevelopment that will take two years. Part of the proposal is that while the redevelopment is taking place at Concord Hospital, 20 palliative care beds will be transferred -

Mrs Skinner: Point of order: The Minister is referring to different documents from that on which my question was based. The question did not relate to minutes. The Minister has the wrong documents.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order.

Mr KNOWLES: The fact is that 20 beds will be relocated from Concord Hospital for two years whilst the redevelopment of Concord Hospital takes place, and they will then be moved back to Concord. Beautiful as it may be, Concord Hospital is an entirely appropriate place within the Central Sydney Area Health Service to locate those services. In the meantime, the redeveloped Canterbury Hospital, which opened eight months ago with an increased number of beds, is capable - based on revised planning arrangements - of coping with the required loads and dealing with palliative care admissions for two years. That is the level of co-operation between hospitals on a network basis, just like the strategy and network proposals that I announced a couple of weeks ago.