Ahead of state budget release, peak health body fears Tasmania won’t receive enough support

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Tasmanian government will hand down its interim state budget this week. Health remains a major challenge, with a $400 million blowout in the last financial year. Hospitals struggling to meet demand fear more cuts, with the Australian Medical Association wanting long-term solutions and for hospitals to have a greater say in how the money is spent.

Transcript

00:00Budget after budget. Tasmania's public health system continues to struggle to keep up with growing demand.

00:11When the health department gets a budget, that budget is not based on what the health department needs.

00:16It's purely based on what the government can afford.

00:19Since the last budget, there's been a $400 million overspend on health, mostly on staff costs including locums,

00:26while at the same time units are being asked to tighten their belts.

00:31What we're seeing at the moment is a command and control structure that's running healthcare.

00:35We're seeing departments running hospitals, not hospitals running hospitals with the support of departments.

00:41There's now an interim state budget to be handed down on Thursday.

00:45Bridget Archer walked into the role of health minister less than three months ago facing immediate pressure.

00:52From an intensifying wage dispute to longer waits for elective surgery and ambulances.

00:58You can't look at those systems in isolation.

01:01I'm continuing to have consultation right across stakeholder groups about all of the parts of the health system

01:09and the hospital system and how they work together.

01:11With Treasury forecasting Tasmania's debt to reach $13 billion within three years,

01:17the minister might have to do more with less.

01:20It doesn't mean they need to necessarily spend more in health, but they need to spend their money better.

01:25We need to be delivering better outcomes.

01:27Ms Archer has again turned to the federal government for more support,

01:31arguing the state will be more than $670 million worse off over five years under a proposed public hospitals agreement.

01:39The federal government is asking Tasmania and asking all of the states to reduce their health demand,

01:45but they are not providing us with the resources that we need or the tools that we need to reduce the demand in the first place.

01:53The federal government argues it's already providing more than enough for Tasmania's health system.

01:58It also says the state received a recent boost to its GST returns, but Tasmania is not on its own in facing health budget pressures.

02:07We've got each state with massive budget problems.

02:11We're seeing each state having massive health budget and healthcare delivery problems.

02:15We can't do it with the resources we've got at the moment.

02:18A state budget for the short term, but a system in need of solutions for the long term.

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