VIC:Deal won't help hospitals grow: Baillieu

AAP General News (Australia)
08-02-2011
VIC:Deal won't help hospitals grow: Baillieu

By Melissa Jenkins

MELBOURNE, Aug 2 AAP - Victoria will receive only limited benefits from the $4 billion
promised in the federal government's national health reform deal, according to Premier
Ted Baillieu.

After protracted wrangling with the states, particularly Western Australia and Victoria,
Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the health reform funding on Tuesday, saying it
would deliver $175 billion by 2030.

While he welcomed it as a better deal than the one agreed to by his predecessor, Mr
Baillieu said the cash wouldn't start flowing for another three years and would help hospitals
cope with rising demand, rather than allow them to expand.

"I am positive about the outcomes, but I'm realistic as well," Mr Baillieu told reporters.

"I am realistic to the point that this will, for Victorians, not make a great deal
of material change."

Mr Baillieu said he had not heard the $175 billion figure before and it was an estimate.

He said Victoria would reap up to $4.1 billion in additional funding from 2014-15 to 2019-20.

There would be up to $300 million available for Victorian hospitals to be negotiated
in 2013, and $50 million available sooner to help deliver elective surgery and emergency
department services.

The deal, which will provide $16.4 billion to the states in the first six years, will
roll out nationally through a cost per procedure funding system which has been in place
in Victoria since the 1990s.

A national independent authority will determine the funding to be paid per procedure.

An additional $30 million in reward funding will be available to Victorian hospitals
that meet clinical targets.

Australian Medical Association Victoria president Harry Hemley warned the lure of bonus
payments can encourage hospitals to fudge figures.

Dr Hemley said rural and regional hospitals, plus specialty hospitals, would still
be funded through block grants under the deal.

"They will still receive what they were before," he said.

"There is no actual increase in payments for increased patients coming through the door.

"Some of the regional hospitals, for instance Bendigo and Ballarat ... see more patients
come through the door but they're not actually getting any more funding."

Mr Baillieu said Victoria had won an exemption from a commonwealth takeover of home
and community care services.

Opposition health spokesman Gavin Jennings said the coalition government, which promised
800 extra beds in its first term, had done nothing for hospitals since being elected last
November, and had failed to provide extra funding to help cope with rising demand in winter.

"The Baillieu government has not introduced one new bed, one new doctor, one new nurse,
one new treatment to Victorian hospitals during the last eight months," he told reporters.

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