AMA (NSW) response to the 2026-27 NSW Budget

MEDIA STATEMENT FROM AMA (NSW) PRESIDENT DR FRED BETROS

Today’s Budget is not all it seems.

Health funding has gone backwards in real terms despite record activity. That is a disaster for patients. With health inflation at 4.9 per cent, it is extraordinary that this Budget fails to keep pace, despite extra Commonwealth funding and the mandated wage increase for nurses and midwives.

Nurses and midwives do essential work and deserve to be properly valued, but the NSW Government cannot seriously claim this as a Budget boost when almost 30 per cent of health funding is going towards wage increases it was forced into paying by the Industrial Relations Commission.

The NSW Government has promised 9,000 additional health workers, including paramedics, nurses and allied health staff, but there is no mention of doctors. That is a serious gap in today’s Budget.

As a surgeon in western Sydney, I see the impact of this pressure on the front line. I see patients waiting too long for care, doctors and clinical teams stretched too thin, and hospitals trying to manage demand they were never properly resourced to meet.

There is also no clear funding announcement for preventative health to keep people out of hospital in the first place. NSW cannot keep waiting until patients are sick enough to need an emergency department before the system takes them seriously.

Without proper investment in prevention, chronic disease management, specialist outpatient clinics and early intervention, hospitals will continue to carry pressure they were never designed to absorb.

Most of the infrastructure projects in today’s Budget were announced by the previous government. This is not good enough. Doctors and patients have been crying out for support, and today’s Budget fails them.

Media: P: 0419 402 955 E: media@amansw.com.au