Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Friday my constituents awoke to read the front page of the Daily Telegraph. The headline read ‘The hit list—Revealed: the 117 health services at risk of closing’. The article by Simon Benson read:

THIS is the list of 117 NSW hospitals senior health clinicians claim will struggle to survive under Kevin Rudd’s health reforms.

It went on to say:

All are currently block-funded and considered financially unviable under the Federal Government’s plans for a pay-for-service model.

They don’t perform enough medical procedures to fund their own existence.

In my electorate, the target hit list includes the Gloucester Soldiers Memorial Hospital, the Bulahdelah Community Hospital, the Nelson Bay District Hospital and the Dungog Community Hospital. The report by Simon Benson went on:

NSW Health officials, including some of the country’s leading surgeons, claimed more than 100 NSW hospitals were at risk of becoming financially unviable under what is known as a casemix—or activity-based—funding.

Professor Bob Farnsworth, chair of the Sydney Illawarra Area Health Service’s health advisory council, said Mr Rudd’s reforms were “appalling” and “potentially a disaster” for NSW.

“It is taking healthcare in NSW back 20 years,” he said.

It gets even worse. John Deeble, the co-architect of Medicare, was quoted in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald today as saying that the $50 billion reform package was ‘largely spin’. He went on:

Will all this reduce the blame game? Of course not. This policy document is full of it …

He went on to say:

With two tracks for funding and decision making on every issue ... there is huge potential for blame-shifting …

I am very concerned. The hospitals in my electorate, those small regional hospitals, are important for the health benefit of our community. They are important for the employment and economic viability of those small communities, and they are the essence of community spirit. This Prime Minister and Premier Keneally need to come out and rule out any closure of hospitals in my electorate. What we will see is a consolidation into the John Hunter, Maitland and Mater hospitals and that will have a dire effect. I do not think that this Prime Minister nor the Premier of New South Wales understand what it is like to sit in an ambulance and travel for an hour and a half to the closest hospital—which is what could happen if they shut down these hospitals in my electorate. I am calling on the Prime Minister and the Premier to be strong.

If ever I saw evidence that they wanted to put more pressure on the major public hospitals, I saw it last night when, again, there was the push to push through the Senate the private health insurance rebate reduction scheme. What they should be doing is alleviating the pressure on public hospitals, and you will not do that by closing down the small regional and rural hospitals in areas such as my electorate. (Time expired)

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the parliamentary secretary, I do want to acknowledge and welcome into the gallery participants in the 2010 Inter-Parliamentary Study Program. I wish you very well with the program, and hope you learn the good things from our process and not the bad!