published letters

Published in Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday, May 20, 2010

Choosing a private hospital rather than a public one is not necessarily safer despite the report today from the Productivity Commission showing that mortality rates are higher in smaller public than private hospitals, but the same in the larger hospitals. As the report clearly indicates, the explanation may be that most smaller public hospitals are in rural and remote areas. It did not feel it necessarily adequately allowed for this difference. Small private hospitals specialise in relatively simple procedures in otherwise reasonably healthy people and although some adjustments were made for these factors, the Commission indicated it simply didn’t have good enough data to properly compare. The question must be asked of the Government, ‘ Why are all hospitals which spend taxes not forced to provide data to enable comparisons?’, especially given that 60% of private hospitals were not assessed.

The Commission also measured business costs but not charges to patients when measuring efficiency even though previous evidence indicates that private hospitals charge up to twice as much as it costs them. Patients have to pay charges, not costs. No business survives unless charges are well above costs. So the evidence on efficiency is seriously misleading.

Dr Tim Woodruff
President
Doctors Reform Society