Record emergency demand and nothing left to cut in state’s hospitals
March 16, 2016New AMA (NSW) leadership team to focus on key health issues affecting the state
May 18, 2016AMA (NSW) President, Clin A/Prof Saxon Smith, says the failure of the COAG meeting to solve the deadlock on long-term health funding pushes hospitals further into crisis.
“The Federal Government’s plan on health has some decent ideas but provides no framework, planning, or funding to execute them.
“It has consistently applied this light on the details approach to health – it has many inquiries and reviews in motion but no sound policy or plans to show for it.
“At the same time it has been doing its level best to remove resources from health and shirking its responsibility to provide leadership.
“It extended Labor’s freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule and it’s planning on cutting billions from hospitals.
“The Commonwealth is very good at declaring how things should be but has consistently failed to provide a roadmap on how to achieve the goals it sets out,” Clin A/Prof Smith said.
“The Health Minister simply saying she wants to keep people out of hospital is not a reform agenda.
“Neither is expecting doctors and administrators to magically summon billions in savings through efficiency.
“Hospitals are efficient and becoming more efficient every day.
“They need to because, with the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule, the Government is already chipping away at the resources GPs and hospitals have to treat patients.
“But when you’re talking about cutting funding so significantly, efficiencies can only take you so far,” Clin A/Prof Smith said.
AMA (NSW) Vice President, Prof Brad Frankum, says the Federal cuts to health will be especially hard on fast-growing populations, like in western and south western Sydney.
“We know that demand for medical services is outstripping population growth and we know that the population is growing very fast in Sydney’s west and south west.
“People are both arriving in sicker states at emergency and waiting longer for elective surgery.
“This is a recipe for disaster for fast-growing areas like Campbelltown,” Prof Frankum said.
“Between 2011 and 2026, the population of the Macarthur region is expected to increase by over 70 per cent.
“During that same period, the need for medical overnight beds is expected to nearly double and the number of beds required for acute adult same day services will more than double,” Prof Frankum said.
“It’s not just Campbelltown Hospital that is facing these kinds of pressures.
“Westmead Hospital is already drowning in demand for its services and is located in an area with a population growth rate double that of the rest of the state.
“In the Western Sydney Local Health District, four out of five of the local government areas it covers have diabetes rates above the NSW average.
“In the 2010-11 financial year, Western Sydney LHD residents had higher hospitalisation rates for diabetes than anywhere else in NSW.
“I hope the Government’s medical home trial is introduced in western Sydney.
“If not here then, at the very least, I hope it will decide on the locations it wants to implement its trial in as soon as possible,” Prof Frankum said.
Media contact: Lachlan Jones (02) 9902 8113 / 0419 402 955