AMA President Discusses Proposed Public Hospital Boards

DR CAPOLINGUA: Local boards for hospitals is something that has been in existence in the past in Australia. There are examples of that currently in Victoria; and local hospital boards bring management accountability and responsibility right back to the community.

It is a good idea.

QUESTION: What about the 400 million; is it enough?

DR CAPOLINGUA: We know that we need an increasing in the Australian Health Care Agreement funding over the next five years. We know we need more money to open more beds; and we need an increase in the indexation, from five per cent, to eight to nine per cent.

So, local hospital boards are a management issue. All the other requirements for public sector funding are still there, including the aged care funding.

QUESTION: Alan Carpenter this morning said that it's a terrible idea; Tony Abbott's trying to take us back to a plan years ago that didn't work, and was scrapped because it didn't work; and that local boards would have no idea how to run the massive business that is a hospital.

DR CAPOLINGUA: Goodness gracious me, I think that's a commentary then on boards of...

QUESTION: Sorry.

DR CAPOLINGUA: You got me riled up with that one.

QUESTION: Yeah, Alan Carpenter says it's a very bad idea, and that local boards would have no idea how to run a hospital.

DR CAPOLINGUA: Many large organisations, including private hospitals, and large commercial industries run on the principle of a board - boards made up of businessmen and experts in the area. And in a local hospital board we would look at leading citizens as well as doctors.

And those boards are very effective, and those industries are very effective.

Carpenter is right in saying that large hospitals are a big business. Indeed, Royal Perth Hospital for instance has 5,000 staff. A board would be a very applicable way of managing a business as big as that, and doing it much better than what we have now.

QUESTION: So the plan has the support of the AMA?

DR CAPOLINGUA: The AMA has always supported the concept of local boards. And when they were dismantled in Western Australia, we fought quite hard to stop that from happening.

The dismantling was something instigated by the Government and Health Department at the time, under-resourcing the boards so that they could take control.

Local boards mean that the chair of that board can make direct representations to the Health Minister; make demands with regards funding, the opening of beds, and the needs of that board - of that hospital, and I guess that might be uncomfortable for State Governments and State Health Ministers.

Sounds like a good thing for the people.

QUESTION: We're hearing a lot of political debate at this moment, at the moment about what Kevin Rudd wants to do, and what John Howard wants to do.

Do you really care about the politics of it, because you think that hospitals are going to win out of this?

DR CAPOLINGUA: Election time is a time for us to get runs on the board as far as health is concerned.

I don't care about the politics. I care about what we can deliver to the people of Australia.

QUESTION: What about Kevin Rudd's plan to… basically he says that he will threaten to take it over federally, the State health systems, if they don't meet their targets.

DR CAPOLINGUA: The AMA has always said that we don't believe that the people of Australia will be served any better with a Commonwealth takeover of health service delivery.

The Commonwealth is very remote to on the ground. Each State has got different demographics and different issues, and different demands; and we need a local accountability and responsibility in health.

QUESTION: Would local clinicians, who would be part of that board, have sort of ulterior, motives in choosing a Chief Executive, which would be part of their role as a member of the board?

DR CAPOLINGUA: There would be doctors on the board, but the doctors would not be the majority of the board. It'd be a mix of community individuals as well.

We have to remember that the interest will be in service delivery of the hospital for the people, and vested interests will be managed by a balance of representation on the boards.

Ends