Last year, when of course we were all in lockdown, the demand on emergency departments really plummeted and of course elective surgery was paused and yet the performance of hospitals in some states barely improved and in others it actually continued to decline.
When it comes to emergency departments, it is ACT at the bottom of the pile. And the sad thing about this report is it really does show, as it does each year, how much it matters where you live in Australia as to what access to public hospitals you have. When it comes to elective surgery waiting lists, it is Tasmania that has the worst performance in our report card this year.
We would like to see the long-term trends reversed. Rather than continuing with a way of funding public hospitals, it really only looks at throughput and where the states pick up the bulk of the tab or just over half the commonwealth a little bit less than half.
It’s a system that doesn’t actually in any way encourage state governments to build new hospitals, to employ new nurses and new doctors in order to meet that demand.
So we would like to see the funding package actually change in its nature so that it does encourage investment. And also reward hospitals for better performance.