Thank you very much Paul for those very warm and generous remarks of welcome. To my ministerial colleagues Danna Vale and Gary Hardgrave, other parliamentary colleagues, Digger James, Mr Burgess the State President of the RSL, Janet Holmes a Court, the Chairman of John Holland Constructions, Ben Humphreys who I'm delighted to see here - a former parliamentary colleague and friend of mine, ladies and gentlemen.
First can I say it's always terrific to come to a function organised by somebody who is so obviously enthusiastically and committed to and dedicated to what it's all about, and the leadership that Paul has given to his highly successful company, the enthusiasm that he has brought to the cause of providing high quality private health care and particularly for the veterans of Australia, is well known and he has demonstrated it again today.
Greenslopes is Australia's largest private hospital. Ramsay Health Care is the largest provider of private health care to Australia's veterans and one of the leading providers of private health care generally throughout the community. What you're participating in the opening of today is a remarkable facility. It's world class. It will set some new benchmarks for health care not only in Queensland, but around Australia. And it is a very impressive demonstration of the importance of having a vigorous private sector health care provider and private sector health care provision to stand along the universally available facilities of Medicare.
The strength of the Australian system is that we have both. We will slip behind other countries if we move away from the dual system. And what we have endeavoured to do as a Government, and it's demonstrated in a facility such as Greenslopes, we have endeavoured to provide and will continue to provide support for both systems. This hospital has 530 beds, a 24-hour emergency centre and a wide range of medical, surgical, psychiatric and other health services. It's Queensland's only private teaching and research hospital, and I want to join Mr Ramsay in paying tribute to the skill and the expertise of the doctors, the nurses and the other medical staff who work here. Without them, without the professional commitment and personal dedication of health professionals, a hospital would not provide the haven and the support and the atmosphere of caring and healing which is so important to a civilised community.
Greenslopes of course has had a very special relationship with the veterans' community. When it was first opened in 1942 it was a military hospital and after World War II it provided care for veterans. Since 1995 Greenslopes has offered services to general private patients, but through special arrangements with the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the hospital continues to care for eligible veterans and war widows. Now, I want to take the opportunity of reaffirming the Government's very strong commitment to the maintenance of those special arrangements for the caring of veterans, and we are at present in discussion with representatives of the medical profession regarding the continuation of those arrangements. They are special, they are unique to Australia and they are going to be maintained.
I also want to take this opportunity of reaffirming, as I said a moment ago, our very strong commitment as a Government to the maintenance of a duality within one, if I can put it that way, which is a special characteristic of the Australian health care system. We are absolutely committed to maintaining and strengthening the public health system, especially through the maintenance of Medicare. We will continue to provide resources for the three main elements of the public health system - access to free treatment as a public patient in a public hospital, payment of a Medicare rebate at 85 per cent of the scheduled fee for a visit to a GP, and maintenance of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. They are the three pillars of the universal Medicare system and they are going to be maintained fully by this Government.
We're also very strongly committed to the maintenance of bulk billing, and we're currently also in discussion with the medical profession about particular measures designed to ensure the availability of it. And the measures that I will be announcing on behalf of the Government in the not too distant future will all be designed to strengthen the universal principles of Medicare and to ensure that it stands beside the very strong private health system.
The private health insurance rebate, which Mr Ramsay mentioned, as well as the introduction of lifetime health cover, have led to a very significant increase in the membership of private health insurance funds in Australia. It's worth remembering that of the nine million Australians who benefit from private health insurance, that something in the order, a very significant number of them, indeed one million people on incomes of less than $20,000 a year have private health cover. It is worth remembering that it is a benefit, an incentive, a facility which is available for a wide range of people at all levels of income within the Australian community.
The rebate contributes to a better balance between the public and private health care sectors. The rebate has undeniably taken the strain off the public hospital system. You see the evidence around you, the burgeoning of a strong private sector, must as a matter of elementary logic mean that the strain on the public system has been eased. In fact, in the year 2000/01 the admissions to public hospitals in Australia fell for the first time since the introduction of Medicare in 1983. Private hospital admissions have risen by 12 per cent since the introduction of the rebate and indeed since the introduction of that rebate, the number of privately insured episodes of care has increased by over 600,000 or 41 per cent. Now those figures are an illustration of the contribution that the policy of the 30 per cent rebate and the encouragement it provides for people to enter private health insurance, the contribution that has made to the strengthening of the private system and thereby taking the strain off the public system.
They each in a sense depend on the other. You have an imperfect health system if one of them begins to decline or erode, and that was happening until the introduction of the private health rebate and the commitment to lifetime health cover. I have taken a few moments, ladies and gentlemen, to talk about the interdependence of the two systems because we debate health policy in this country an enormous amount, and a lot of the exchanges that take place over health policy pass for serious debate, but they are not. Of course we don't have a perfect system and we have a lot of imperfections. The truth however is that compared with the health systems of nations that we would like to compare ourselves with, ours is superior.
A person on average income is better protected by the health system in Australia than he or she is for example in the United States. And anybody who suggests that changes we have in mind to strengthen Medicare are going to take our health system down the American path, could not be more wrong. The American system is fundamentally different from ours and it will always remain so. And for all that its advocates may claim of the British national health system, I find few medical practitioners and even fewer patients who will argue with me, who have experienced both, that the British system is superior to Australia's. It plainly is not. And the genius, if I can put it, of the Australian system is the partnership between the public and the private components. And it's that partnership that is symbolised on the private side by the contribution that Ramsay Health Care makes and by this magnificent facility.
It is a wonderful environment, if you can say that of any hospital, you've achieved it. You've got a wonderful environment. You've got a caring staff. You've got 40 years of dedication to an ideal of the private sector providing in a caring fashion, health care for Australians. And I want to congratulate everybody associated with this project, and most particularly I want to congratulate Paul Ramsay for the leadership that he has given to the private health sector in Australia and indeed in other parts of the world. It is a particular pleasure to be here with so many representatives of the RSL, who in a broader sense represent the veterans whose special care is a particular responsibility of Greenslopes. The debt we owe to them is incalculable. It can never be repaid but it should often be remarked upon and repeated and referred to.
And in declaring Greenslopes officially open, I also have the privilege of naming two of the wings. The first, the John French wing, is as mentioned earlier, is named after Corporal John French. He was born in Toowoomba. He was the first Australian from Queensland to be awarded the Victoria Cross for action seen in World War II. He advanced against enemy machine guns and was killed in that in action at Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea on the 4th of September 1942. Jessie Vasey was born in Roma, the wife of Major General George Alan Vasey. The second wing is to be named after her. A war widow herself, Jessie Vasey made certain through her tireless efforts that Australian war widows were not neglected. She devoted the last 20 years of her life to establishing and building up the War Widows' Guild. And I have very great pleasure in firstly naming those two wings so appropriately honouring two people who are famous and well regarded within the veterans' community, particularly here in Queensland.
And before I conclude, I know ladies and gentlemen that I would express the views of all Australians in saying how proud we are of the magnificent efforts of our men and women on service in the Gulf at present, expressing our gratitude for their safety so far and expressing the hope and the prayer that that will continue until their task is completed. They follow a great tradition, so represented by many people here today. It's a tradition that brings enormous honour to this country and a tradition which is so generously and genuinely respected around the world.
I'm delighted to be here Paul. Thank you for the invitation. I wish everybody who works here and serves here and cares and heals here, the very best for the future and I have very great pleasure in declaring Greenslopes Hospital well and truly open, I shouldn't say for business, but for looking after Australians and anybody else who may come your way.
Thank you.
[ends]