AMA President, Dr Bill Glasson, with David Koch, Channel Seven, 'Sunrise' - Public hospitals are in a serious mess right across the country; Health Minister Tony Abbott; Medicare

KOCH:            Welcome back to the frontline, and as any doctor or nurse will tell you, this is the frontline of the medical system and it is under a lot of pressure.

And seeing that we're going in to bat for hospitals today, a special version of our Wednesday All Stars, to take a look at what is happening with these budget surpluses - why isn't the money getting through and why are the government stashing it away, or in fact fudging the figures?

How can Peter Costello get the last two years budget surpluses so wrong?  To cry poor for so long and then come in with these so-called unexpected windfalls?

I'm joined this morning by the President of the AMA, Dr Bill Glasson.

Thanks for joining us.  Dr Glasson, what sort of state is our hospital system in at the moment, and how much do we need to get it right again?

GLASSON:    Look, Kochy, the public hospitals are in a serious mess across this country.  There's been chronic under-funding for the last decade or more, and as the doctors will tell you, they can't get patients into hospital, they can't get them out of hospital, because they really just haven't got the resources to handle the demand that's out there.

So I'd suggest to Peter Costello, that if he's gonna play Santa Clause this Christmas, then it's a time he looked across the public hospital system of this country and make sure he funds it appropriately.  So that we can, so the patients in this country can have a, have a nice present in the form of proper healthcare that they deserve.

KOCH:            We have a new Health Minister that's just been appointed recently, in the last couple of months, are you seeing any change of direction there?

GLASSON:    Yeah, look, I'm very confident, confident with Tony Abbott.  He's a doer.  He's a straight shooter.  Obviously he needs some support of the Treasurer and the Prime Minister to deliver on health, and he obviously needs to advocate strongly around that Cabinet table, and obviously on the public hospital issue, on the medical indemnity issue, on the workforce issue.  I want really Abbot out there sort of bantering what we need for the Australian community.

So I think that Abbott is good.  I think he's - as I said, I have enjoyed working with him on this indemnity issue, but we need Costello to basically come along as Santa Clause and deliver in the areas that we need in health, and that's particularly our public hospitals.

KOCH:            And really you're saying to catch up for the years of neglect that the system has been starved, when you look at the total healthcare system, which are the areas that are crying out most for funding?

GLASSON:    Well, essentially the Medicare system is still under-funded, Kochy.  The last 10 years, there's been a direct strategy to under-fund the system.  And I suppose what we're saying to the government is, try and target your resources to Medicare - particularly at that 20, 20 minute consultation period - because that's where doctors and patients want to give time, and at the moment patients are not receiving sufficient rebates in the terms of reflecting what it cost to provide the service.  So that's number one.

Two is, we've got to go to our public hospitals, try and get them I suppose more streamlined, more efficient, from the point of view of how the money comes from the Commonwealth to the actual coal face, but also those people on the coal face are trying to provide those services in the A&E departments and in the cancer ward, they are saying to us, listen, they have not got the resources to deliver the services the Australian community needs.

So, we need, we need a significant improvement of funds in that area if we're gonna continue to keep up the pace with what we need and provide the quality medicine that this country needs, and also to provide the quality of workforce - that's the other important issue.

KOCH:            The stories that I'm hearing here are just horrific - of nights where there are 10 beds in corridors banked up, where ambulances are being turned away, and a lot of it is because of this bed block, where the lack of funding into aged care is putting extra pressure on the hospitals because aged care patients are being stuck in ward beds rather than being put into facilities that really cater specifically for them.  And then that blocks the real, people in real need of medical care from actually getting into the hospital in the first place.

GLASSON:    Exactly, Kochy.  A bit like a freeway.  People are thinking they can't get on the freeway because they can't get off it.  And your reality is that there's a huge problem in the aged care sector, in the sense that we can't get, we haven't got enough beds to actually get patients out of hospitals, and essentially we haven't got enough what we call transitional facilities, where patients can go and be rehabilitated or have some intermediate care before they go to that aged care facility, or back to home.

So, we have to think smarter how we're actually doing this.  But, essentially to underpin the system, we need more money into our public hospitals, full stop.

Ends