CAIRNS Hospital has slashed surgical waiting times and sped up emergency treatment, but there are fears the region’s health system could suffer dramatically if Federal Budget cuts come into play.
New government data has shown Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service’s performance to be “among the best and most efficient in the state” according to Health Minister Lawrence Springborg, including a 21 per cent increase in the number of patients seen in the emergency department within four hours over the last two years.
But Cairns MP Gavin King has expressed “very serious concern” that last Tuesday’s Budget could spark a roll-back of these achievements after an incentive-based hospital funding scheme was seemingly tossed on the chopping block.
“My understanding is in the 2015-2016 financial year, we were looking at receiving significant rewards for Cairns Hospital’s efficiency, but my early reading of changes to health funding is that will no longer apply because that whole incentive funding model has been changed,” Mr King said. “If you take that incentive out of the system, going forward we could go back to the dark old days of people having to wait years for elective surgery and ambulances being ramped up outside the hospital.
“We can’t afford to lose momentum when we’ve come so far, and I don’t want to see money that should be going to Cairns Hospital going back to Canberra.”
Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service board chairman Bob Norman said changes to the funding scheme spelt the “disappointing” potential for Cairns Hospital to lose millions of dollars in potential funding.
He said this could result in a future reduction in some of the “additional services” the hospital provides and threaten to undo recent achievements to reduce surgery waitlists.
“If we’re going to have any funding cut in subsequent years, potentially, those waitlist numbers may go back up again,” he said.
But there is a possibility any funding changes released in the Budget would not be ratified in parliament.
Federal Member for Leichhardt, Warren Entsch, acknowledged the “great work” being done by Cairns Hospital.
“Assistance to the States for public hospitals is projected to grow each year over the forward estimates,” he said.
Source: Cairns Post