Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid said it was “not good enough” for Albanese to promise to negotiate over hospital funding,saying Labor’s position was no different to the Coalition’s.
“Of course they’ll negotiate ... That doesn’t mean they’ll actually come to the party when it comes to the funding,” Khorshid said.
But Albanese said he was not going to promise something he could not deliver in government.
“We’re not promising things in advance and then we’ll say something different after the election campaign. What we’re doing is being very clear,” he said
“I’m aware that premiers would like increased funding. Premier Palaszczuk has raised it with me.”
Albanese noted that all premiers wrote to the government last year to ask for a solution to the growth funding dispute,and that Commonwealth debt was near $1 trillion.
“So that is why we are being very responsible,very measured,in the proposals that we have put.”
The federal government raised its contribution to 50 per cent for COVID-19 related hospital spending during the coronavirus pandemic,but this ends in September.
Former Health Department secretary Stephen Duckett has argued for a two-year extension of the 50:50 funding arrangement to help public hospitals deal with an elective surgery backlog and the pressure on emergency departments.
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Andrews told this masthead the states would be hit with about $5 billion in costs,including $1.5 billion for Victoria,without a resolution with Canberra.
“Whoever wins the federal election,they will need to deal with these issues,” he said. “And I think they will face a united team of first ministers[premiers and chief ministers] who are speaking up on behalf of patients and speaking up on behalf of the people that they serve.”
AMA vice-president Dr Chris Moy said the states needed “emergency funding” from the Commonwealth to help fix the hospital crisis in the next three years,before the 2025 agreement kicked in.
“If you don’t have enough beds and not enough doctors and nurses,you can’t get enough care,” Moy said. “That’s why we’re seeing people dying on a relatively regular basis,because they can’t get emergency care ... We really need to plan towards expanding capacity to be able to provide the care that people need.”
“We’ll be able to work with[Albanese],not someone who won’t even allow it to be on the agenda at national cabinet.”
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