Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has said that she doesn't expect the number of patients in New South Wales intensive care units to peak until October. What extra resourcing is the Prime Minister providing to New South Wales hospitals so that intensive care units are not overwhelmed in the coming weeks and months?

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

I thank the member, and respect his concerns. In particular, the first thing we have done is to provide a private hospitals guarantee. This creates a partnership between public and private hospitals. It means that the entire New South Wales private hospital system is available for the New South Wales government to draw upon, to assist with nursing staff, with other staff, with beds, with ICU capacity and with ventilation capacity. Across Australia, this represents over 57,000 nurses, it represents over 100,000 staff and it represents over 30,000 beds. This is a fundamental partnership, the likes of which I'm not aware of having been created in Australia previously. It has already been invoked and called upon within New South Wales, so the private hospitals viability guarantee is not just capable; it's in operation.

In terms of our funding, we're currently investing over $7.8 billion this year in New South Wales and $41 billion over the current public hospitals agreement within New South Wales. That's expected to see significant increases of over a billion dollars—investments that have seen a very large impact in a positive way upon that system. In addition to that, we are also making available masks, gloves and gowns, and we are making available additional funding. And we have the capacity to provide additional ventilators through the National Medical Stockpile.

However, I should say that New South Wales has done an extraordinary job in preparing its system. It has increased from a ventilator capacity in ICUs from 500 to 2,000. That's on the latest advice of the Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, in her press conference of 26 August 2021. We have assisted in acquiring that ventilator capacity not just in New South Wales but around Australia. That ventilator capacity has increased around Australia from approximately 2,000 to 7½ thousand. This is preparation for all of those circumstances. What we've seen and heard is that, for example, the esteemed Chief Health Officer of New South Wales, Dr Kerry Chant, said only in recent days: 'We've got the capacity to work with our private hospitals, in which we have significant bed capacity. Our hospitals will be doing a lot of local planning about which patients are best cared for in which circumstances.'

So we have provided funds and we have provided ventilators, gloves and gowns. But, above all else, we have provided staff and a partnership with the private hospitals.