Plea to help our hospitals

‘A truly terrifying picture’

THIRTY-four of the nation’s most overstretched public hospitals service people in key marginal electorates and the major parties are refusing to provide them with extra funding at their peril.

Crippled by pain, facing unacceptable waits in emergency departments and 12-month delays for elective surgery, disgruntled patients are demanding more federal hospital funding.

The pressure on some of these hospitals is so dire fewer than half the emergency department patients who need treatment within 10 minutes are getting it in that time frame. In others, almost seven in 10 patients waiting for urgent elective surgery are not treated within clinically recommended times.

Patients are waiting more than 750 days to have cataracts removed and 652 days for hip and knee replacements as public hospitals buckle under the Covid-19 surgery backlog.

The situation is expected to get even worse, with the federal government’s commitment to fund 50 per cent of Covid-related health costs scheduled to end in September, costing the states billions.

The Australian Medical Association wants the federal government to lift its share of public hospital funding from 45 to 50 per cent to solve the crisis. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and other state leaders said they would also demand a 50-50 funding split for hospitals, and called for an extra $5bn a year from Canberra.

AMA president Dr Omar Khorshid said its hospital logjam finder “paints a truly terrifying picture”.

“Our logjam finder shows that of the 204 Australian hospitals we analysed, over 50 have five or more red lights against the eight ED and essential surgery indicators,” Dr Khorshid said.

“Ramping is rife, and avoidable deaths are now an unacceptable reality.

“Yet despite this national emergency, we are yet to see either party showing any leadership on hospitals.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the buck for public hospital funding stopped with the state governments.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese said he would negotiate with states on their call for extra funding but stopped short of promising the money.