South Australia's health system is groaning under long waiting lists for elective surgery, delays in seeing patients in emergency departments and a lack of qualified doctors, nurses and medical staff.
Six out of 10 people who turn up at the emergency department at Modbury Hospital languish longer than recommended without seeing a doctor.
Part of the problem is attracting and keeping doctors in SA. Nurses recently signed a new pay agreement, still not high enough to stop their drift to other States where wages are higher. Doctors have yet to sign their new wage agreement, but are unlikely to get all they’re after. At the moment doctors and medical professional wage rates also below the national average, and this Budget does little to stop doctors being tempted by the more lucrative fruits of their labour in the eastern States.
According to Opposition Health spokesperson Vickie Chapman, SA doctors are now the lowest paid in any State, with the exception of Tasmania.
Nevertheless, as it does every year, the 2008 Budget allocates more money for health services than before – and once again, as every year, it won’t be enough. Once again, it would hardly be fair to heap all the blame on government, because the cost of health care itself is going up. New treatments and drugs are always more expensive than the old, patients with terminal illness can (thankfully) be kept alive for longer - although at a price – and SA’s ageing population means increased costs for aged care.
To meet these changing needs, the Health Budget takes an innovative and imaginative approach in several areas, such as allocating cash for a half-dozen new ambulances to be equipped at a lower level than regular vehicles. They will still service certain patients, but at less cost.
At the same time, the government’s decision in last year’s Budget to build a new commercial and health city on the parklands in Adelaide’s west end – the Marj – is criticised by health professionals and planners as overly expensive, overly ambitious, and needlessly grandiose.
But Mr Foley yesterday stuck by the decision to build the edifice, saying that even if the Liberals won the next election, Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith would immediately reverse his policy and commit to building it too.
But the Opposition has plenty of other hypodermics to fire.
“The Rann Government brags about the proposed ‘Marj’ and claims it will have 800 beds, yet they have been shutting down beds since they came to office,” Ms Chapman said as Budget figures came spilling out.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Hospital statistics show there are fewer hospital beds in SA public hospitals than when Labor came to power, although per capita SA still does better than the national average.
The Budget fails to solve the crisis in mental health, with the government selling off mental health facilities to private housing and commercial development faster than new facilities are rebuilt or replaced.
Headline programs such as those to cut school-age obesity get far more publicity than mental health or public dental care (SA’s dental program needs an amalgam of staff and funds), neither of which this Budget fixes.
Liz Penfold is the Liberal Member for Flinders based on the Eyre Peninsula. She’s virtually unknown outside her electorate, but acknowledged by allies and opponents alike as hard-working and not given to hysterical political responses.
“People living in regional areas have a lower life expectancy,” she said.
“While primary health care is the base on which all health care stands, it is the area this government is targeting for cuts. With such healthy state revenues, the government can and should take another look particularly at primary health care in rural and regional SA.”
Mrs Penfold was worried that at least five hospitals could be lost on Eyre Peninsula with the government downgrading them to old age facilities and funding responsibility transferred to the Federal Government.
“Reducing basic health services leads to increased waiting lists for the poor and regional people, with some missing out altogether on essential surgical and other therapeutic procedures,” she said.
She may get some comfort from the upgrade of the Ceduna, Berri, and Whyalla hospitals, but regional health – as in every Budget in modern times, Liberal and Labor – still lags behind capital city services.
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