Queensland Health Minister Cameron Dick says he cannot rule out major cuts to services if the Federal Government slashes the health budget.
Mr Dick is in Sydney today for the COAG health minister’s meeting and says Queensland is facing an $11.8 billion reduction in federal health funding.
“There are 15 health services in Queensland,” he said.
“The biggest is metropolitan south, that’s Brisbane to Logan out to Redlands.
“They would face a $2.6 billion cut.
“The size of some of those cuts is the equivalent operating costs of some small hospitals in Queensland.”
The minister said he would not be closing hospitals but was worried about maintaining current health services.
“I couldn’t rule anything out, it’s not possible with $11.8 billion of cuts coming through,” Mr Dick said.
“My view would be to provide services where they are but there would clearly be a very significant reduction in services, and that’s really frontline staff.
“Less surgery, less specialist appointments and less diagnostic testing.
“What would happen is the waiting lists, that would clearly blow out, the wait for surgery would clearly blow out.”
Mr Dick said Labor would still deliver on their health election commitments.
“We are doing budget work around that now,” he said.
“The biggest change to the budget starts in 2017, that’s when it really starts to bite.
“Although about a billion dollars is coming out of the national health system already because of decisions made in the [federal] budget last year.”
‘Go hard’ at COAG, Opposition urges Health Minister
Opposition health spokesman Mark McArdle said Mr Dick had to fight for every dollar during COAG.
“I say to Cameron Dick go very hard in Canberra, get what we can, what we’re entitled to,” Mr McArdle said.
“What the minister should be doing is fighting hard but also taking into account what could happen and then planning for what could be the eventuality.”
Mr McArdle said the former LNP government faced health budget cuts and still increased services.
“We also got a cut of $103 million and $500 million over forward estimates,” he said.
“We took on cuts to our health service when we were in power and came out with good outcomes.”
He warned Mr Dick against scaremongering before the outcome of the COAG meeting was known.
“I spent Tuesday and Monday this week going through Maryborough, Hervey Bay and also Bundaberg hospitals,” he said.
“One thing I very was keen to see was renal dialysis, that is diabetes treatment.
“The people there are both young and they are old.
“I can just imagine their faces now having been told they might lose their services without any backup plan in place.
“It’s incumbent upon Cameron Dick to make certain we get the outcomes we need.
“But if the funding cuts do occur and I hope that they don’t, we need to deal with them professionally in a manner that delivers ongoing services.”