Hospital funding quotes[1]


Hospital funding quotes[1]

The 2014 budget did serious damage to Commonwealth-state relations and the confidence with which states could plan and manage health services. It did this by abrogating an agreement about public hospital funding which had been signed by governments of all political persuasions and unilaterally imposing a new funding model on the states.

Dr Stephen Duckett, Director, Health Program, Grattan Institute

The annual hospitals budget, from New South Wales, is about $20 billion. That is one year's salary, effectively...You can close the system for a year or you can fund to meet demand...$18.3 billion so it is, virtually, a year's New South Wales hospital budget worth of cuts.

Dr Andrew McDonald, paediatrician, Campbelltown Hospital

If implemented, the return to a population based funding arrangement would dismantle cost-sharing arrangements...in service delivery terms this lost funding commitment equates to the volume of services that at least two tertiary hospitals the size of Melbourne Health [which runs the Royal Melbourne Hospital]...could be expected to produce over that 10-year period.

Ms Kym Peake, Acting Secretary of the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services

What we know as an industry is that when you put more out-of-pocket costs for patients, patients choose not to come for their examination.

Ms Bronwyn Nicholson, General Manager of the I-MED Radiology Network, Queensland

So you have longer waiting times and people are not seen acutely when they should be seen, so they are much sicker when they are seen, and then you end up having to fly them out. It is just a revolving door.

Dr Stephanie Trust, Kununurra Medical Centre

Removing 600 hospital beds; or

  • Closing an entire hospital; or
  • The cost of employing 3000 nurses; or
  • Doubling elective surgery waiting times.

South Australian Government

The cohort of patients are the complex elective surgery that needs to be performed, not the day cases—they have been raced through. The complex cases are still waiting. There are unacceptable time frames in Tasmania. People are often in pain, stopping the quality of life... So we actually have fewer beds in Tasmania than the average across the country. That is due to budget cuts... We also have the longest elective surgery waiting times. So you can see why we frame it as the perfect storm.

Mrs Neroli Ellis, Branch Secretary, Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, Tasmanian Branch

The Commonwealth Government’s abandonment of the National Health Reform Agreement has cut $248 million from what we expected to receive for our hospitals over the next four years. In this Budget we have chosen not to pass on this Commonwealth cut and send our hospitals into chaos.

ACT Treasurer, Mr Andrew Barr MLA

Northern Territory hospitals are already performing below national benchmarks, mainly due to the high demand for acute care. The majority of hospital patients in the Northern Territory are Aboriginal, so reducing access to high quality hospital services will hurt Aboriginal people the most.

Mr John Paterson, Chief Executive Officer, Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory

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