Budget 2015: Doctors say health funding cuts could hit crucial services

Health groups say important services like drug and alcohol treatment and research could be axed as part of programs targeted for savings in the federal budget.

More than $960 million in savings was announced in a rationalisation of some health programs. Just under $600 million of that comes from the department’s “flexible funds”.

Australian Medical Association president Dr Brian Owler said important organisations funded through the grants needed to plan for their future and continue their important work.

“There is a lot of uncertainty as to whether those programs, those important organisations such as Palliative Care Australia, Alzheimers Australia, the Foundation for Alcohol Research Education and many other non-government organisations are going to continued to be funded,” he said.

“Rather than announcing that these almost a billion dollars will be made to those cuts, we need to see certainty around where the cuts will be made, how they are going to be applied.”

What is under threat:

• Alcohol and other drug treatment services have a 12-month funding extension to expire in June next year, with no certainty after that.
• Organisations such as the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations and Hepatitis Australia have a 12-month extension to expire in June next year, with no certainty after that.
• Patient organisations such as the Consumers Health Forum of Australia, Mental Health Australia and PHAA have only a six-month funding extension, with no certainty after that.

Health Minister Sussan Ley said the funds were part of a $12 billion program.

“Across the life of that fund, it’s sensible to take a 7 per cent saving to realise some of those savings and efficiencies that we need to manage the system better for the future,” she said.

She added that people wanted to know that frontline services were in place and that their health was being taken care of.

“We’re focusing on quality, so we will make sure we get the back-office stuff, if you like, sensibly reformed,” Ms Ley said.

But Public Health Association of Australia deputy chief executive Melanie Walker said it was incongruous that the Government could find $20 million in the budget for an ice awareness campaign yet treatment services to help people dealing with addiction faced an uncertain future.

“To think that funding to help individuals and families address addiction is under threat beggars belief,” she said.

“It is of great concern to all the services and organisations potentially affected by these cuts.”

Ms Walker said if the cuts went ahead, it would leave many Australian families and communities without the support they needed.

It is understood that existing programs will be funded but that when they expire, individual programs will be reviewed.

Cuts will hit patients, Labor says

Patients will certainly notice cuts to health services through the proposed cuts, according to Opposition health spokeswoman Catherine King.

“It will have a direct impact, so these funds fund things like the National Heart Foundation for the important work they do,” Ms King said.

“They fund organisations in the cancer space. They fund organisations for blood-borne viruses, the important organisations that the HIV-AIDS community has been working with for many decades.

“We will literally start to see those groups defunded. So, whilst it is not the headline like the GP tax and the hikes to medicines, these are absolutely death by a thousand cuts.”