25 October 2007

AMA report confirms Commonwealth short-changing public hospitals

NSW Minister for Health, Reba Meagher, today said the most notable finding of the AMA Public Hospital Report Card 2007 was that yet another report had confirmed that the Commonwealth Government had reduced its funding for public health services.

The AMA's report found "…the average contributions of governments since the 1980s are close to 50 per cent each but in recent years, the Commonwealth government effort has slackened off… (page 4).

It also stated that "…The Commonwealth government needs to pull its weight with funding contributions that are more appropriate to the needs of the people.' (page 4).

Ms Meagher said this latest report mirrored earlier findings by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare which found that the Commonwealth Government was short-changing public health services across the nation by $2.2 billion each year. NSW's share of this cut is $750 million.

"The NSW health system is one of the most complex businesses in Australia," Ms Meagher said.

"Our hospitals admit more than 1.5 million patients every year, treat more than 23.3 million outpatients and admit the highest proportion of patients via emergency departments."

"The Commonwealth needs to do its bit by adequately funding its share of the costs of running the public hospital system," Ms Meagher said.

The NSW Government has implemented a range of strategies to this increased demand for surgery. These include 1,800 more beds over the last two years, a clinical redesign program to better manage the patient journey, and the implementation of the surgical services plan to reduce elective surgery waiting lists.

"The Australian Productivity Commission reported earlier this year that NSW maintains a higher number of total beds per capita than all other states except South Australia," Ms Meagher said.

"In addition, a recent Australian College for Emergency Medicine report showed that NSW Emergency Departments performed better than the other states.

"It showed a 30 per cent decrease in the number of patients affected by access block in NSW between 2004 and 2007," Ms Meagher said.

In addition NSW has:

• Met 100 per cent of life threatening cases, categorised as Triage 1,
• Exceeded the National Benchmarks for Triage Category 2, Triage Category 4 and Triage Category 5, and
• Significantly improved performance for Triage Category 3.

Ms Meagher said surgical performance across the state had also improved.

"In June 2007 there were only 79 surgical patients waiting longer than 12 months for elective surgery and in January 2005 this figure stood at 10,514 patients," Ms Meagher said.

"The number of people waiting longer than 30 days for urgent surgery now stands at a record low of just 117, compared with the January 2005 figure of 5296."

For a range of health information, go online to www.health.nsw.gov.au