Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 163 standing in my name by, in paragraph (b) in the second line, removing the word ‘will’ and replacing it with the word ‘could’.

Leave granted.

I move the motion as amended:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes that:

(i)

at 3 pm on Tuesday, 26 August 2008, there were 24 people who could not get a bed at the Townsville General Hospital because of overcrowding,

(ii)

at the hospital ambulances are being used as makeshift beds in the first recorded case of ‘ramping’,

(iii)

at 10 am on 26 August 2008 there were 18 patients in the emergency department waiting for inpatient beds, and

(iv)

in August 2006 the then Labor Premier of Queensland made an election commitment to commence work on a new $85 million wing at the hospital in the 2007-08 financial year;

(b)

acknowledges that the Government Medicare threshold rebate proposals could throw additional inpatient bed pressure on the Townsville General Hospital already incapable of dealing with current demand; and

(c)

calls on the Commonwealth and Queensland Governments to urgently fund and commence construction of the promised new wing of the Townsville General Hospital.

Question agreed to.