AMA REPORT CARD DAMNING INDICTMENT OF ABBOTT’S HEALTH CUTS
The Australian Medical Association’s 2015 Public Hospital Report Card is a devastating indictment of the Abbott Government’s $57 billion cut to public hospitals.
The report makes clear it is patients who will pay the price for these cuts, by waiting longer to get an increasingly scarce hospital bed and longer to be treated in already struggling emergency departments.
The report exposes once and for all as lies the Abbott Government’s denial about the scale of these cuts and its 2013 election pledge of “no cuts to health”.
Tony Abbott has repeatedly denied making any cuts to health, but the report finds:
“The Commonwealth has reduced hospital funding to the States and Territories by $1.8 billion up to 2017-18 by withdrawing the funding guarantees made in the National Health Reform Agreement.
In its Budget update released on 15 December 2014, the Government announced a further reduction in funding for public hospitals of $941 million over four years.”
But these are just the entre of cuts preceding the main course from 2017 when $57 billion will be ripped out of public hospitals by tearing up Labor’s agreement to fund 50 per cent of the growth in the efficient price of hospital funding.
“The Government appears to be picking and choosing which elements of existing health financing arrangements it will observe, depending where the cost falls.
“The Government has justified its extreme health savings measures on the claim that Australia’s health spending is unsustainable. But Australia’s health financing arrangements are not in crisis.”
As the report card proves, public hospitals are badly in need of this funding, with the number of hospital beds falling and states failing to meet targets for waiting times.
Labor’s Health and Hospital reforms, trashed by the Abbott Government, would have used that funding to improve patient care and make hospitals much more efficient by rewarding performance in meeting waiting time targets for emergency departments and elective surgery.
This agreement would have delivered better quality care in primary health, hospitals and aged care while putting in place a secure funding base for the health system and hospitals well into the future.
As the report notes, the Commonwealth’s position is simply unsustainable.
“Without sufficient funding to increase capacity, public hospitals will never meet the targets set by governments, and patients will wait longer for treatment.”
The Government’s dedication to introducing a GP Tax to drive down bulk billing and increase patient costs can only add to this strain by driving more people into these already struggling Emergency Departments.
The AMA’s 2015 Public Hospital Report Card is the latest in an ever growing list of reports which have confirmed that no government in recent memory has been more damaging to public health in Australia than the Abbott Government.
Australians deserve better than a government which only ever sees health as a source for Budget cuts.
Only Labor believes in Medicare, and only Labor will protect Medicare and build the health system for the 21st Century that Australian deserve.
AMA REPORT CARD DAMNING INDICTMENT OF ABBOTT HEALTH CUTS
Tagged under:
2015