Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

My question is a very serious one to the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing relating to the treatment of cancer patients. I refer the minister to reports this morning that the government's failure to resolve a funding shortfall for chemotherapy will result in an increase in treatment costs of $100 per chemotherapy transfusion for cancer patients. Given that medical facilities will unlikely be able to pass on the increase in prices, does the government expect cancer patients to seek treatment in an already overcrowded public system that received a funding cut of $1.6 billion in the MYEFO, or does the government expect private centres to cough up an estimated $1 million in increased costs? Is this not just another Labor disaster in Health?