Page 2456 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
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When you look at the health budget, in particular, you can only conclude that the Labor Government is budgeting on a wing and a prayer. Madam Speaker, we all know that the ACT is facing a program of expenditure reduction. This is in line with the Commonwealth Grants Commission findings, to bring spending into line with other States. Unfortunately, this Government still has not got the message. The necessary cuts are not being made, which means that there will be some very rude shocks around the corner. This year we will see an overall increase in the health budget of at least 2 per cent. In recurrent terms a one per cent drop has been forecast, but we will see an increase when supplementation under the so-called business rules is taken into account. Mr Berry said that further supplementation will occur - he said that yesterday - and it will.
The same applies to supposed cuts over the next three years. The Government is spreading the idea that there will be a $4.5m cut in Health. Firstly, this is simply not enough. The Grants Commission requires much more than that. Secondly, if it is only a $4.5m cut, with supplementation we will actually see a spending increase. Last year there was $10.6m worth of overexpenditure. At this rate the supposed $1.764m cut this year looks fairly sick. The Labor Government is not managing in accordance with the Grants Commission process. The process calls for a decrease in expenditure - I say it again; a decrease in expenditure - and this Government is making increases in the health arena. It shows that the Labor Government just has not got the message about overexpenditure in Health. What it means is that, because we are not making the necessary cuts now, there will be some very rude shocks around the corner. There will be greater cuts; there will be fewer hospital beds.
The cuts have to be made, but they have to be targeted. The Government's past approach has been the across-the-board cut approach. This approach means that all services will be run down, regardless of their contribution to health outcomes. Their approach has been to duplicate services provided in the private sector and elsewhere. A lot of money has been squandered, even when this Government has made some attempt to make cuts in Health, and that certainly is not the case this year. We have to be able to increase services where necessary, and where they can improve health outcomes, and where they are needed by the community. You have to be able to target these cuts. There is no such policy flexibility from this Government. There is no vision and there is no strategy for the future. This year any attempts at making the necessary cuts have been abandoned.
The Government says that there has been a decrease in the number of occupied bed days. The decrease is 4.8 per cent. The Government says that this is due to a decline in average length of stay. At best this is a half-truth; at worst it is straight propaganda. There is one simple fact that explains the decrease in occupied bed days, and the fact is that the number of beds has been cut to 819, from 909 beds in June or July last year. The Labor Government has dramatically reduced the number of beds. More than anything else, that explains why the number of occupied bed days has fallen. There is nothing to be proud about in that. When you treat more patients in fewer beds there is only one way to do it, and that is to shove them through quicker. That is how this Government has reduced the average length of stay - by having fewer beds and shoving them through quicker.
Reducing the average length of stay is desirable if it can be done by improving surgical techniques and treatment procedures and by establishing a convalescent facility to take non-critical, long-stay patients. Unfortunately, the convalescent unit, which was a central part of the redevelopment plan and has featured in
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