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The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Health. Why have ophthalmology patients at Dubbo had to wait an average of six months for their operations, with 27 patients already having waited for more than one year? How long will the remaining 282 patients currently on the waiting list have to wait?
The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: I happen to have the long-wait figures for the Dubbo Base Hospital, which show a significant decrease on the figures from February 2005 to February 2006 of some 76.9 per cent in long waits. This is a silly thing that happens when the honourable member does not follow what happens in the lower House in question time. He has lobbed up a question about which he has exercised no judgment and he has asked it. He has ended up looking quite stupid. It is important to remember that the figures I have just quoted for Dubbo, the long-wait list having gone down by some 76 per cent, is not an isolated occurrence.
The Hon. Patricia Forsythe: Point of order: Clearly, the Minister is debating the question, not answering it.
The PRESIDENT: Order! When answering a question one of the two things that a Minister cannot do is debate the question. The Minister must answer the question.
The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: The figures I stated for Dubbo are not isolated, but part of a detailed plan to reduce waiting times overall. We started it off some two years ago by appointing Professor Brian McCaughan and Dr Patrick Cregan, two very experienced clinicians, to lead a team of people to advise us about a waiting list reduction policy. Overall across the State, in the past year in particular, we have seen a 67.7 per cent reduction in the long-waiting list, that is a figure of some 10,500 to a figure now of around 3,400—a $115 million investment in a surgery plan. Not only have we achieved improvement in the long-waiting list, but we have achieved it also in the overall waiting list with a reduction of some 8,000. If the honourable member followed question time in the other House he also would have heard the announcement of an additional $7 million this financial year to specifically target long-waiting lists.