published letters

Published in The Age on Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Doctors are leaving public hospitals as predicted years ago for four reasons, all related to Federal Government policy. Firstly, the taxpayer funded private hospital industry has expanded hugely with help from $3 billion in private health insurance (PHI) rebates. Secondly, the public hospitals are unable to cope because of federal underfunding of hospitals, aged care, and primary care, the latter two factors resulting in patients being in hospital when they don’t need to be. State Governments are in a muddle, increasing resources to public hospitals after deliberate underfunding a decade ago, but not catching up because they cannot address the Federal issues. The new Rudd Government plans to tackle only three of the reasons, It ignores the PHI rebate which, apart from being patently unjust, will continue to kill off the public system in favour of the profit driven private hospital industry. All Australians are at risk when our public hospital system fails, it’s where we will all go in emergencies.

Dr Tim Woodruff
President
Doctors Reform Society