Health system failing: Hospital bed funds sit idle while people are suffering on wait lists

Investigation into department funds needed, writes Mervin Reed

Ihad no inkling, after I wrote my first article (Talking Points, November 28, 2022) on the disappearing 250 beds at the Royal Hobart Hospital, that I would have to assume the mantle of detective Poirot, and get to work on the Department of Health’s accounts, to see what had happened to the cash that the Liberal government had appropriated.

I figured it had to be somewhere. It appears that the department has diverted the money to hide it in its Special Purpose Account, which shows a balance of $241m presently.

It is $9m short.

Remember the Treasurer Michael Ferguson has advised Tasmanians that he has borrowed funds to make sure all of these special purpose accounts are backed by cash.

Thus, a significant interest expense is being incurred on this deposit. It is likely to be somewhere in the range of $15m annually. You can heal a lot of people for this amount of money. These are the funds that were supposed to be used to get the 250 beds open at the RHH, to stop people dying at the front door or in ambulances.

It appears that nobody could care less.

Why would the funds now sit around at a cost to the taxpayer, if they were not to be used for the purpose that they were intended for?

It seems that an investigation by the Parliamentary Accounts Committee and the Auditor General would be in order.

If this is a deliberate act, and the Department of Health has known this was a centrepiece of the government policy for the past three years, then people need to be held to account.

It makes the Premier Jeremy Rockliff look uncaring.

Thus, we have the Department of Health, who could not get organised to hire nurses, now seemingly unable to get organised to get contracts out to urgently renovate wards at the RHH, for which they have had the funds already appropriated. They have had the cash for six months.

They have had three years to get this moving.

Why is this tolerated?

Why do we pay people to do

nothing while people die in ambulances and at the front door of the hospital, and Mr Rockliff stands up and says it’s all to do with bed block.

It is not due to bed block, it’s to do with the lack of drive in the department to get the job done to generate the 250 beds.

Well Premier and Minister for Health, it’s all to do with your State Health Commander not being able to deliver your policy after three years.

It is no good doing a good job with Covid if you cannot look after the main game, which are the state’s hospitals.

The fact that the RHH has not gotten 250 additional medical surgical beds is the fault of the Premier, and he has reached a failure standard for southern Tasmanians that is now starting to be a daily newspaper story of misery and suffering.

Apparently, the Premier has no idea that the cash is sitting around doing nothing.

It would be incumbent on anyone with a modicum of common sense in the Department of Health to wave a flag to say we have the funds, let’s get going with this.

However, the infliction of pain and suffering on people who cannot afford GPs or health insurance continues, and to me appears that very few people in the Cabinet even know about the hidden money, let alone the fact that nothing has been done for three years to get these beds open.

I would have thought that they would have at least made a token effort to get 68 beds (two wards) reopened and hire more nurses.

It is now apparent that the Department of Premier and Cabinet needs to step in and get things moving, with the employment of nurses their top priority.

Equally, the Department of State Growth can take over the upgrading project for the 250 beds and get this program rolling.

If the Minister cannot deliver 68 beds in 60 days, then he in effect is being lied to.

He has voted in Cabinet to approve the budget and the funds have been made available by the parliament, and I have discovered them sitting idle in the Special Deposit Account of the Department of Health Services.

No impediments now Minister, nothing to stop you getting on with this and having some people treated at the RHH in a bed, rather than ramped in ambulances and dying on the doorstep.

Let us, the citizens, see what you can do when you want to.