media releases

“The announcement at COAG that there will be a $1 billion Federal boost to public hospital funding along with implementation of transitional Aged Care places to lessen the load on public hospitals is welcome news but not enough to save our patients years of narcotic suppressed misery as they wait in pain for public hospital care,” said Dr Tim Woodruff, President, Doctors Reform Society. “We hope that this is just the downpayment on the restoration of the 50:50 funding formula between Federal and State Governments which has formed the basis for public hospital funding since the introduction of Medicare and has been neglected by the previous Government to the tune of $2 billion per year”.

“The Rudd Government’s commitment to primary and preventive care will also contribute in the longer term to a reduction in the load on public hospitals” said Dr Woodruff.

“This leaves one last striking omission from the plan to tackle the problems in public hospitals however,” said Dr Woodruff. “Doctors are exiting the public hospital system in favour of the taxpayer funded private hospital industry, leaving public hospitals in the impossible situation where, even with the extra resources promised through COAG, there will not be enough specialists left in the public system to treat our patients.”

“The private hospital industry, funded through the $3 billion Private Health Insurance (PHI) rebate, has grown substantially since 1999, and this growth requires specialists,” said Dr Woodruff. “The only place they can come from is the public hospital sector. Until this is addressed by consideration of the injustice and inefficiency of the there will continue to be a shortage of specialists in public hospitals next door to fully staffed private hospitals”.

“The ongoing Federal Government taxpayer support of the private system means our patients will continue to wait years for surgery in the public system whilst their neighbours with taxpayer funded PHI are treated within weeks. It’s not fair,” said Dr Woodruff, “indeed it is positively dangerous for all Australians who, privately insured or not, rely entirely on the public hospital system in an emergency or for chronic and life threatening illness or injury. The least the Rudd Government should do is to ask the Health and Hospitals Reform Commission to closely analyse how unfair and inefficient the PHI rebate really is.”

Dr Tim Woodruff
President
Doctors Reform Society

Dr Con Costa
Vice President
Doctors Reform Society

Dr Tracy Schrader
Vice President Qld
Doctors Reform Society

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