Review of national funding agreement welcome but health system can’t wait  

The Australian Medical Association has welcomed today’s announcement by the federal government of a review of the National Hospital Funding Agreement but says urgent funding is needed now to stop the health system crumbling beyond repair.  

AMA President Professor Steve Robson said Australia’s public hospitals have been in crisis for years, with cracks starting to show even before the pandemic and they are in dire need of more support.  

“It should be clear to anyone following the news; anyone waiting for surgery; anyone who can’t get in to see a specialist; anyone who ends up waiting for hours in the back of an ambulance outside a hospital — it should be clear, in fact, to everyone, that our hospitals are at crisis point,” Professor Robson said.  

“The AMA has been campaigning on this issue since before the last election to ensure it gets the attention from governments it deserves. We must move to shared 50–50 Commonwealth-state funding for public hospitals, and remove the artificial cap that stops our system meeting community demand. 

“For their part, the states and territories need to commit to improve hospital performance by re-investing that extra five per cent. And both need to fund additional ongoing performance improvement, capacity expansion, and ways to reduce avoidable admissions. 

“The next agreement must also be designed to ensure that we fund the expanded capacity, improved performance and a focus on avoidable admissions that we know we will need in the future.”  

Professor Robson said the AMA had only recently released a report showing that out of around 200 public hospitals analysed, only three were meeting performance targets in elective surgery and emergency department wait times.  

“We also know that unless something changes soon, by the middle of this year around 500,000 Australians will be stuck waiting for elective surgery, many of them unable to even get in to see a specialist to get onto an official waiting list, many of them in excruciating pain.  
 
“After the recent re-launch of our Hospital Logjam Finder we heard from many Australians who are quite literally desperate for help. So while today’s announcement is an excellent first step in addressing these issues and hopefully seeing changes to the funding arrangements for the next agreement, there is still a need for action now.  

“We need a plan now to tackle the current backlog and get those hundreds and thousands of Australians out of pain. That plan can’t wait. We need May’s federal budget to be a health budget to address the issues happening now.”  

Read the AMA’s Australian Public Hospitals in Logjam Report  

Read the AMA’s Addressing the elective surgery backlog report