The ACT health system is too top-heavy, according to the Opposition spokeswoman on health, Kate Carnell.
She said yesterday that greater efficiencies were needed to overcome the budget problem.
“”We have sacrificed efficiency for industrial peace for too long,” she said.
Ms Carnell was commenting on a report in üThe Canberra Times@ yesterday giving an overview of the ACT health budget to be brought down by the ACT Government later this month. The details were contained in a departmental document obtained by üThe Canberra Times.@
It predicted a 2.5 per cent cut in funds with the aim of providing the same level of service, but it acknowledged that services could be cut and jobs would be lost.
Ms Carnell said the things listed as positive initiatives in the document were in fact necessities canvassed long ago. The linear accelerator for nuclear medicine, the case-mix and nursing-information units were necessities or catch-ups with what was happening in the states.
There were many thing missing. There was no mention of the new hospice that the Minister for Health, Wayne Berry, wanted to put on Acton Peninsula. There was no mention of the Independent Complaints Unit, mammography screening for over-50s or the slow-stream convalescent unit.
Further details about the health budget are not available because ACT Health does not wish to comment about the document.
Ms Carnell said the ACT system still had work-practices problems. It was not just in the nursing area.
“”Not a lot of effort has been made to get rid of these,” she said.
The ACT health system was running at 148 per cent of the average cost of other states. The ACT had problems of economy of scale, so hard decisions had to be made.
“”We have to use the private sector more efficiently to overcome that,” she said. “”We could contract for NSW work. We should do that with some aggression. “”Our administration is top heavy; there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians,” she said. “”And the nurses were therefore over-taxed at ward level.”
Without the convalescence unit, one had to ask where would the patients go. The good policy of having patients stay in hospital for as short a time as possible would be jeopardised without the convalescence unit and adequate community nursing and home-based nursing. However, the if the budget was guaranteeing acute care services would be maintained, these areas would have to suffer.
The secretary of the ACT branch of the Australian Nursing Federation, Colleen Duff, said on Saturday that her union would not accept job losses because the system was strained as it was. The union would co-operate, however, with looking at efficiencies.