Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. Noting that today is International Nurses Day, will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison government is responding to the coronavirus pandemic to ensure that we are flattening the curve?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Bass, who has been a great advocate for the health professionals and the nurses in her electorate and around the country. In particular, on this International Nurses Day, we remember and acknowledge the fact that our nurses are there at our birth and so often at our death. They are there at many of the most profound and important moments in our lives. And they have been there during the course of this pandemic at the front line of Australia's response to coronavirus.

When the member asks how Australia has been able to respond, we've been able to respond only because of the help, the work, the support and the courage of our nurses, our doctors, our pathologists, our allied health workers, our pharmacists and all of those involved in the protection of our citizens. We've been able to respond only because of the contribution of the Australian population, who have themselves taken onboard the difficult social distancing measures, the isolation—physically but also sometimes emotionally—and at the same time have backed and supported each other. And we've been able to respond because of the National Cabinet, which the Prime Minister built, in conjunction with the premiers and the chief ministers, acting as a single national body guiding our actions. Those actions that we have taken as a government have included our containment measures, in particular our border controls, beginning on 1 February with the difficult and challenging closure of the border with China, but it was the right thing to do; with our testing, with well over 800,000 tests in what is described by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as being at the global forefront of accuracy for global testing; and our containment through tracing and now the work of the app, which has added to the work of our public health officials and the isolation measures, all coming together.

In terms of our capacity, we have boosted our primary healthcare services. We've introduced telehealth, with over 8½ million telehealth services that have supported Australians who might otherwise have been isolated, whilst protecting our healthcare professionals. We have supported our aged-care workers, who have been absolute heroes during this crisis. When one compares what has occurred overseas with what's occurred here, it is clear that they have saved and protected lives. And we've boosted the capacity of our hospital services: 20,000 nurses have enrolled in ICU training; over 5½ thousand have completed the training, with the rest on their way, and another 3,000 are on their way to returning, with 77 per cent of those having completed their work.

So, today we say to our nurses: we thank you, we honour you. And you, along with others, are the reason Australia has helped flatten that curve.