Victorian public hospitals are not meeting the national targets for emergency treatment, a Productivity Commission report has revealed.
The report also found the state also has one of the longest waits for elective surgery in Australia.
Almost 500,000 patients waited more than four hours in emergency departments and more than 5,400 waited more than a year for elective surgery in 2013-14.
Premier Daniel Andrews said people were suffering because of funding cuts made by the former Coalition government.
“Cutbacks hurt patients, and that’s what the Productivity Commission’s report shows,” Mr Andrews said.
“If you cut health, patients suffer. It’s as simple as that.”
Mr Andrews vowed to continue lobbying the Federal Government to abandon plans for a GP co-payment, saying it would put more pressure on emergency departments.
“Today’s as much as anything an appeal to Tony Abbott to not persist with these GP tax changes that will clearly drive more people to emergency departments,” he said.
“The savage cutbacks to health funding in last year’s federal budget will make our job of repairing the damage and building a better health system so much harder.”
State Health Minister Jill Hennessy said a $5 GP co-payment would have a “frightening” impact on the Victorian health system, with Government modelling showing emergency departments would have to cope with an extra 10,000 people a year.
“This is the health system that the Andrews Labor Government has inherited,” Ms Hennessy said.
“We are dedicated and committed to working to repair that damage, but again, we call upon the Federal Government to not persist with its attack on the Victorian health system.”
Coalition ‘left health system in better shape’
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy disputed claims the health system was worse off because of the Coalition.
“In so many areas the health system is in better shape,” Mr Guy said.
“Waiting lists are in fact doing better, and in fact a number of areas of the health expenditure budget are doing much better under the previous Coalition government compared to when Daniel Andrews was the Health Minister back in 2010.”
The president of the Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) Dr Tony Bartone said more recent quarterly data showed an improvement.
“It’s useful to identify trends and compare historically, but if you look at health performance data from the Victorian department as recently as September 2014, we can see more meaningful up-to-date figures that show we are improving,” he said.
The Government has also ordered an audit of the state’s hospital bed capacity by the former head of the AMA, Dr Doug Travis.