Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister update the House on steps the Morrison government is taking to support Australia's hospital network in response to the coronavirus pandemic?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Higgins, not just for her question but for her service throughout her career as a leading Australian medical professional, a paediatrician and a researcher. One of our great challenges as we address the coronavirus in Australia is to ensure that we have the capacity within our system for all possible eventualities. It's part of a grand national approach, a strategic approach, where we're seeking to contain the virus and increase our capacity.

As we saw from the modelling yesterday, we could have faced a situation of between three and 20 million people who had the virus. We are not facing that now, thank goodness. That, from the outset, set the two great tasks of containing the virus, which we are doing, increasingly, but we have a long way to go. I really want to emphasise that. There are some who, with the best of will, would say, 'Things are looking good; now we can just relax.' That's not the case. We have a long, long way to go. But as that curve is flattened we've also been building the capacity of the system: primary care, aged care and our hospital system.

One of the most important parts of that has been the partnership between the public hospital system and the private hospital system into a single integrated national network. That partnership means that we've been able to bring an additional 30,000 beds and beyond into the fight against coronavirus in an integrated approach. It means that 57,000 nurses and 105,000 hospital workers, all up, are being brought into that battle. Importantly, it means the retention of those jobs through the coronavirus fight and beyond. It means the capacity of that system will be available now but will also be there as we emerge. That, I think, is an immensely important position for Australians, because that capacity will be there to deal with all of the other health needs that as a nation we know so well, be they cardiac or cancer, be they orthopaedic or otherwise. So this partnership is exceptionally important.

What it also means is that the private sector will work in with the public sector. As a government we've given a guarantee that we will cover everything beyond the state partnerships with the private sector and that we will also meet 50 per cent of those partnerships. All of this is about the federation working, working within the national cabinet that the Prime Minister and the premiers have designed, and saving lives and protecting lives.