The 11th hour fix for drug and alcohol organisations announced tonight by Minister Nash is just the latest chapter in the long saga of the Abbott Government’s chaos and confusion in health policy.
At literally the last minute before these crucial organisations were due to begin winding up services and laying off staff, the Minister has announced she will rollover their funding for another 12 months.
It’s clear the Minister has rushed out this fix, after being embarrassed by warnings from Labor and public health groups about the looming crisis.
But tonight’s announcement is simply not good enough, and will do nothing to provide long term certainty for these crucial services.
Worse, it appears the fix still leaves in limbo hundreds of other crucial health programs tackling chronic disease, communicable diseases and rural health issues.
These programs are all due to expire on June 30, and were subject to a $197 million cut in the 2014 Budget to the Health Flexible Funds.
It’s the second time in a month the Abbott Government has announced a band-aid fix for a crucial health program.
Earlier this month the Minister announced another 12 month funding rollover for the Specialist Training Program established by Labor in 2011 to overcome critical shortages in the number of specialists being trained.
In the surgical area alone, the program has provided 73 new training posts, around a third in rural and regional areas which often struggle to attract specialists.
The entire scheme was thrown into chaos by the Government’s refusal to confirm if new contracts were to be offered, just weeks before candidate interviews were due to commence.
Once again, the Health Minister’s decision to continue the program for another 12 months came only after Labor raised this issue in Parliament.
Once again the refusal to commit to the longer term future of the program, the existing 900 positions, or existing funding simply continued the chaos and confusion that is the mark of this government’s health policy.
Instead of short term fixes and knee jerk reactions, it’s time the Abbott Government ended the chaos and confusion and committed to long term funding for these crucial health programs.
11th HOUR FIX CONTINUES ABBOTT HEALTH CHAOS
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2015