Health Budget Cuts to Deepen Health Crisis

WHAT: Door Stop
WHERE: ANMF Office, 54 Tamar Street, Launceston
WHEN: 11:30am, Friday 7 November

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation Tasmanian Branch (ANMF) is dismayed by the lack of investment in the crippled Tasmanian Health Service in the Interim Tasmanian State Budget which was handed down by Treasurer Eric Abetz yesterday.

ANMF Branch Secretary Emily Shepherd said the ANMF has been calling for a sensible budget that would match funding to current service delivery and service demand.

“But the opposite came true yesterday with a State Budget claiming record investment in Health with one hand, yet stripping it back out with an increased efficiency dividend, hiring freeze and expected budget savings through the newly formed efficiency and productivity unit,” Ms Shepherd said.

“While at face value the claims that there is record investment in health may resonate with commitments to robot technology and increased breast screening for women, the reality is that those same people may be waiting for years to be seen in clinics to make it onto a surgical list and they may have their surgeries repeatedly delayed due to insufficient staffing and also lack of post operative beds due to ongoing access and flow block.”

Ms Shepherd said the additional commitment yesterday outlined an increased LGH Emergency Department as part of the previously committed LGH Master Plan process.

“While this will accommodate additional patients who present to the emergency department and allow greater space for people to wait for care, some of the longest wait times in the country’ but the same can’t be said for patients accessing the health system getting care in a timely manner due to no initiatives to improve impatient capacity and flow.

“Expansion of the LGH without any other measure to increase inpatient capacity and flow will just mean longer wait times and an even larger kink in the patient flow pipe.

“The irony of a budget designed to improve productivity and efficiency while cutting corners at every turn is enormous, when economists highlight that the return on health investment is 9:1 and every year of increase life expectancy has shown to raise gross domestic product by around 4%, the Tasmanian Government should be investing in health to ensure efficiency and improved productivity.”

Ms Shepherd said the expectation of a crippled health system to find more budget savings whilst also being more efficient quite simply will not work.

“Already the insufficient budget is leading to outrageously long and delayed recruitment times, which results in the use of agency staff and overtime which costs much more than appointment, just one example of inefficiency and the poor insight that the Government has in how to run a health system’

“On the day that the interim budget was handed down, the North West Regional Hospital’s ED was over capacity and struggling to meet demand with over 40 patients in the ED with patients ramped in corridors, admitted patients waiting for inpatient beds and nursing staff grappling to find a place to treat the ever-increasing demand for patients.

“Our members are at breaking point now due to insufficient capacity, rising demand and no attention by this Government to address access and flow issues, our health system won’t wait till Treasurer Abetz has returned his budget to surplus in 2029 to fix these concerns and Tasmanians will pay with their lives.”

Ms Shepherd said despite all of this, the State Service Management Office has released a survey to all public sector servants asking them to identify more savings on the same day the budget was handed down providing no relief to an exhausted and stressed nursing and midwifery workforce.

“ANMF members have been providing solutions to improve efficiency to the Tasmanian Government for well over a decade.

“These solutions include:

• Funding hospitals to operate 24/7 with nursing, medical and allied health staff available at all hours to treat diagnose and treat patients efficiently when they present and then move these patients to their following destination either home when they are ready even if it is during the evening or to an inpatient bed without delays due to not being able to see a physio or get bloods or radiology.
• Ensure that there is sufficient nursing staff to provide quality care. Continually understaffing the nursing workforce leads to inefficient care, delays to transfers and at worst closure of beds, you cannot run an efficient heath system without health care staff to provide treatment and care.
• Increase community services to allow patients to be treated in their own homes. Increase community nursing services statewide, roll the community dementia services statewide and increase the staffing profile for the community rapid response service.

“These three initiatives alone would have an enormous positive impact on efficiency across our health care system.

“Despite the ANMF calling for these for decades, and no doubt our members contributing these yet again to the Public Sector Cost Cutting Survey, they are unlikely to be supported.

“The reality is they all need investment, as sometimes you have to spend money to make money.

“However, as the Government only want to cut corners and the health budget, the idea of increasing health system efficiency and productivity seems more akin to utopia than reality.”

-End-

Media contact:
Emily Shepherd, ANMF Tasmanian Branch Secretary
Mobile: 0400 884 021
Email: Emily.Shepherd@anmftas.org.au