Page 3010 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 June 2010
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As well as that shortage of GPs, bulk-billing rates are the worst in the country. According to the latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, we have the most inefficient hospital system in the country. We have seen other problems across health relating to bullying, both in obstetrics and generally. We know that we have serious problems in our emergency departments, particularly in categories 3 and 4. We have seen the debacle with the Calvary purchase—an atrocious process that started before the last election and dragged on for 18 months. We have seen the concerns with people trying to access cancer services. We have seen the staff shortages. We have seen breakdowns in communication. We have seen the mismanagement of serious incidents such as the TB exposure and the management of the first swine flu death. We have seen the very poor negotiation over the national health and hospital reforms that were agreed to at COAG and the misleading of this community relating to the GST amounts. In this budget, we have seen an absolute neglect of mental health and an absolute neglect of preventative health.
If we look at the latest report out today, which is The state of our public hospitals June 2010 report, we find, when we look at how long patients waited in emergency departments, that we are the second worst. In the ACT, the median wait is 38 minutes compared to an Australian average of 23 minutes. It is nearly twice as long in the ACT as anywhere else. When it comes to being seen within clinically recommended times, we are the second worst.
When I say the second worst, the worst is the Northern Territory, which has some unique circumstances both in terms of its geography and its demographics. It is only a minute longer than the ACT, which is way behind the other jurisdictions. In fact, you wait twice as long as you would if you were in an emergency department in New South Wales.
When it comes to elective surgery, for category 2 we are the worst in the nation. For category 3, we are the second worst and, when it comes to the total, we are the worst. But, surprise, surprise, when it comes to the urgent category, at 94 per cent, we are coming second. I think we have had a fair bit to say about the way the figures are being recorded for the urgent category and I probably do not need to repeat that, unless the minister would like me to.
Looking at the big picture, though, the appropriation for health is $1.024 billion. It is an enormous amount of money, and it is growing every year. In fact, according to the calculations that we have done, it is 7.8 per cent growth in 2010-11, six per cent in 2011-12, 6.9 per cent in 2012-13 and 7.3 per cent in 2013-14. Katy Gallagher said yesterday that costs were growing at nine or 10 per cent. I have got other data from ABS that says it is 11 per cent. Regardless of that figure, what we see is a delta between the figure that is in the budget of six and seven per cent and the actual growth in costs of nine or 10 per cent. So that delta is simply building into this budget structurally an underinvestment in health. What has to happen is that money needs to be made up by grants or it has to be made up by somebody, and that is creating real problems for the ACT in moving forward.
Let us recognise that delta of $40 million is in that order of magnitude this year, but when you extrapolate that out through the forward estimates, when you compound
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