Everything but fixing the problem

Blame bureaucrats, sound chirpy ... we’ve heard it all before, says Martyn Goddard

HERE we go again. The everexpanding catalogue of crisis and scandal in the state’s public hospitals have given the Tasmanian Government a bothersome couple of weeks. The pressure is palpable.

We all know what has caused the problem. Too little money, too many patients. And we all know it will not be fixed without a fundamental shift in fiscal policy.

But that’s not going to happen, is it? So the wellthumbed old playbook gets another go. We’ll issue an upbeat press release. Our Health Minister will do a few interviews, trying to sound chirpy. We’ll have a meeting. Lots of meetings.

Oh, and we’ll blame some bureaucrats. That’s always safe. They can’t hit back.

The only substantive current response to the unfolding disaster in our hospitals is to announce that 44 beds in the new K-block at the Royal Hobart Hospital will be opened in the coming year. But let’s look further into that.

For some time, 10 surgical beds have been rented from the Hobart Private Hospital. Only 34, then, will actually be new. It’s a fraction of what’s needed – but where’s the money coming from, even for this? There’s no sign of it in the Budget.

Right now, an acute hospital bed, fully staffed and operational, costs about $1 million a year to run. There is no money in this year’s Budget to pay for those 34 extra beds.

The forward estimates allocate only $16.2 million for extra beds in 2020-2021, $36.8 million for 2021-2022 and $79.1 million in 2022-2023. All up, that’s $132 million over four years for the whole state.

K-block, with the capacity for 250 beds, will be largely empty for many years. And nothing of significance is planned – or funded – for the rest of Tasmania.

In next month’s fiscal update, we can expect the Treasurer, Mr Gutwein, to tip in – yet again – some emergency top-up money. Last year, that amounted to $105 million. It was something he was determined would not be repeated this year, so any

NO HEALTH MINISTER HAS ANY REAL POWER OVER HOW MUCH MONEY THE PORTFOLIO RECEIVES

top-up is likely to be far less generous. If it’s money brought forward from later in the estimates, it will just move the hole from one place to another.

It won’t get the Government, or the Treasurer, out of this political hole. They are relying on the Labor Party to do that for them.

So far, Labor is obliging. Mr Gutwein has escaped most of the public anger arising from the damage the Government’s policies have inflicted on the health system. Instead, the Opposition – and most journalists – have focused on a pair of hapless health ministers.

No health minister has any real power over how much money the portfolio receives. That is controlled very tightly by the Treasurer. The main functions of health ministers are simultaneously to be enforcers and human shields. In the process their political careers are the ones being trashed.

Meanwhile, the Premier sits by, watching it happen.

The Opposition parties might have more success if they struck at the heart of the Government rather than at its impotent periphery.