Mrs JILLIAN SKINNER (North Shore—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) [3.12 p.m.]: I move:

That General Business Notice of Motion (General Notice) given by me this day [Western Sydney Hospitals] have precedence on Thursday 24 June 2010.

The motion of which I gave notice earlier highlights problems in a number of western Sydney hospitals. Blacktown Hospital got only 18 extra beds when the member for Blacktown indicated the hospital needed 110 beds—a figure that I agree with. Nurse vacancies remain unfilled at Nepean Hospital—20 in maternity and 14.5 in emergency. Blue Mountains Hospital's maternity unit is closed more often than it is open despite a promise by the Government to keep it open consistently. There have been claims of waiting list manipulation at Westmead Hospital, with 800 patients affected and all other hospitals in the Western Sydney Area Health Service impacted, particularly Mount Druitt and Blacktown. According to a leaked document I received today, which is the surgical dashboard for May 2010—the indicator of how our hospitals are going in meeting their benchmarks—not one of the hospitals in western Sydney met any of its benchmarks for waiting list performance.

In some cases—for example, cancellations on the day of surgery—not one of the area health services across the State met its benchmarks. In western Sydney the cancellations were among the highest of all. That is why some of the patients referred to in question time today have come forward. I will inform the House who they are. A 25-year-old with a badly broken leg from a motorcycle accident had his surgery cancelled three times at Westmead Hospital before finally having surgery at Blacktown. A 63-year-old man requiring replacement heart valve surgery has had his operation cancelled five times and is still waiting for a new surgery date at St Vincent's. A 23-year-old man requiring nerve repair surgery on his leg had his surgery cancelled three times at Liverpool Hospital. A 20-year-old woman requiring back surgery had her operation cancelled on two occasions at Westmead and still requires corrective surgery.

If this is not an urgent matter that should be given priority and precedence for debate tomorrow, then this Government truly is in cloud-cuckoo-land, not just fantasy land. The Government tries to pretend that everything is fantastic in our hospital system. Clearly it is not. I know that Labor members opposite know it is not and I also know that a number of them would dearly like to have this debate tomorrow. That is why I am urging the House to support this motion to make sure we can bring on this debate and challenge the nonsense statement made by the Minister for Health in Parliament today that there was no mention of dialysis in the Leader of the Opposition's budget reply speech. The reality is that the Treasurer did not mention anything about dialysis or renal services in his Treasury document.

[Interruption]

In response to the interjection by the member for Bathurst, who has not even gone in to fight for his community in relation to lost private health services in the area—

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Bathurst will come to order.

Mrs JILLIAN SKINNER: Those doctors will now be lost to the area. The Government also has not funded renal chairs in Forbes, despite promising them to patients in my presence during a recent visit.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Bathurst will come to order.

Mrs JILLIAN SKINNER: The Minister's statement in Parliament today in relation to her announcement about Concord Hospital renal dialysis was in fact a backflip. The renal dialysis unit at Concord Hospital was closed about 18 months ago. A very dear friend of mine and a good Liberal lady, Angela Carrick, was one of the patients at that hospital who has been put through much agony by having to go to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital for treatment. The unit at Concord will be restored only because of the fantastic work done by the community, the Liberals and Nationals, and by the nurses and doctors at the hospital. It is an utter disgrace that that unit was ever closed—

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Bathurst will come to order.

Mrs JILLIAN SKINNER: And it is a shame that the Minister now tries to claim this is a new announcement when it is simply a reversal of the closure of the unit that occurred some time ago. The member for Mount Druitt is being very vocal. Maybe he would like to tell us about the impact on Mount Druitt Hospital of the waiting list manipulation at Westmead and elsewhere.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Mount Druitt will come to order.

Mrs JILLIAN SKINNER: The doctors are now speaking out about the loss of doctors—

Mr Richard Amery: The patients say it is number one.

Mrs JILLIAN SKINNER: It is only number one because they have taken away emergency surgery and because of the fabulous work done by the doctors and nurses. It is certainly nothing to do with the Government. [Time expired.]

Mr JOHN AQUILINA (Riverstone—Parliamentary Secretary) [3.17 p.m.]: Time and again the member for North Shore rises in this place to make spurious statements in relation to health in New South Wales, and time and again she is proven wrong. I do not know how she has the effrontery to keep making these claims—

Mrs Jillian Skinner: Would you like the document?

Mr JOHN AQUILINA: The documents that she claims to be leaked documents are in many cases nothing of the sort. In other cases, the claims she makes are shown upon investigation to be totally false or completely baseless. Earlier this month the Government handed down the 2010-11 budget—and these are facts that everybody can see and debate—that delivers another record year of investment in health. It contained a massive $16.4 billion for Health—an increase of 8.6 per cent, or $1.3 billion, over the 2009-10 budget. The Opposition would have us believe that this is the action of a negligent government that has no concerns about health.

This year the Government increased the State's Health budget by $1.3 billion on the figures in the 2009-10 budget—a massive increase of 8.6 per cent on the consumer price index—giving a high priority to Health. Compared with other budgetary allocations, the Health budget in this State received the largest funding allocation. The Health budget will strengthen this Government's ability to ensure that, no matter where a patient might live, he or she receives the right care in the right place at the right time. Most decidedly that will include patients in the western suburbs of Sydney and, in particular, the areas to which the Deputy Leader of the Opposition referred.

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition took much pleasure in denigrating the fine hospitals at Blacktown, Nepean and the Blue Mountains, and she made a number of other spurious claims. However, in reality, this Government has increased the Health budget in the western suburbs and in the areas the member purports to represent. The member's motion makes reference to Blacktown Hospital. After a meeting in April of the Council of Australian Governments [COAG], the Premier and the Prime Minister signed an historic healthcare agreement in the presence of the member for Blacktown, the Minister for Health and me. As a result of that agreement, Blacktown Hospital will receive the first new beds in New South Wales and those beds will support the New South Wales Government's investment in that hospital.

The member for North Shore would have us believe that is all that will happen at Blacktown Hospital. However, in reality, the new cardiac catheter laboratory that has been completed will treat more than 1,500 patients and enable the people of Blacktown and the surrounding areas to receive cardiac services locally. A new CT scanner for Blacktown Hospital will help to ensure that imaging services at that hospital remain at the forefront of technology. For a long time Blacktown has been at the forefront of imaging technology. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition completely ignored those facts and behaved as though they were non-existent because it suited her argument to do so. She is about tearing down the health system, whereas members of the Labor Party and of the Government are about building up and maintaining the health system.

Opposition members have clearly stated that they do not support the health reforms or the additional $1.3 billion in funding that has been allocated to NSW Health and to our health system. Opposition members criticise everything this Government is doing, including its investment in beds at Blacktown Hospital flowing from the COAG reforms. The NSW Health Quarterly Hospital Performance report for the period between January and March this year shows that there were 8,783 attendances at Blacktown Hospital emergency department—an average of just over 100 attendances a day. Again, Opposition members are like ostriches with their heads in the sand: they do not accept the facts and they repeat spurious comments that have been made by others. They do not want to lead.

I have been informed that in triage category one patients were seen within two minutes—100 per cent of patients seen on time. In triage category two, 93 per cent of patients were seen within the benchmark of 10 minutes, and in triage category three, 85 per cent of patients were seen within the benchmark of 30 minutes. These are the facts that Opposition members choose to ignore. This motion is not urgent because nothing that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has said in any way relates to the reality of the situation, and it does not deserve to be debated. [Time expired.]

Question—That the motion be agreed to—put.

The House divided. Question resolved in the negative.

Motion negatived.