The Australian Medical Association is warning the country’s public hospitals face a crisis if the states and commonwealth don’t address funding changes due to start in 2017.
AMA president Brian Owler says the changes will mean “a drastic reduction” in commonwealth funding for the states.
“This is something that must be addressed otherwise it won’t be a matter of building capacity in our public hospital system, it will be a matter of scrambling to provide the basic services,” he told the Nine Network on Thursday.
The AMA will on Thursday release its hospitals report card, which will show only 70 per cent of patients are being admitted within four hours.