COAG Announcement of $1 Billion Extra Funding for Hospitals

DR CAPOLINGUA: Good morning.

DAVID KOCH: Now, how significant is this injection, because it's an extra $1 billion on top of what they already get, isn't it?

DR CAPOLINGUA: The significance is the fact that it's there, to start off with. We were very concerned there wasn't going to be any extra money for hospitals in this particular roll-over of the Australian Healthcare Agreements, before the renegotiation. So thank goodness the money is there.

The $1 billion of course takes into account the necessary indexation that would have been required - costs keep going up - so I guess almost half of that would be indexation, money just to keep the status quo going. The extra is the real $500 million that's gone in.

So how significant is it? It's an excellent acknowledgement, it's a start. The AMA had estimated we needed an extra $3 billion over the five years, a $3 billion injection over the five years of the new Health Agreement with an eight to nine per cent indexation. So, at the moment we've got this $500 million for this 12 month period, and it's a good start. I'd like to see the States match it as well.

DAVID KOCH: OK, all right. Now, the big question, it does sound a lot of money, but where should it be spent, because the States haven't done a very good job up to date?

DR CAPOLINGUA: They have not, and the money will go to the States, so we need to make sure that the States actually invest it in increasing capacity, not in it disappearing and dissipating somewhere. And capacity needs beds. In some of the hospitals we know that there is residual bed capacity there. In other words, there are wards closed, there are areas where there is infrastructure existing that could be reopened to treat patients.

DAVID KOCH: Sort of almost overnight? You don't need to put a new building up, it's there.

DR CAPOLINGUA: Well, you'd have to bring those facilities back up to scratch, OK? So capacity would be the first thing that we would be asking for in order to actually treat more patients, relieve those pressures on those emergency departments.

Then each hospital, State by State, would have to address the specific needs of those hospitals in those States, and it may be that - and I'm certain there would be some investment required in bringing equipment back up to scratch - some basic needs, literally things that have been let go over time. But the first issue would be beds, and attracting doctors and nurses, and keeping them there to treat the patients they put in those beds.

DAVID KOCH: So does this extra $1 billion come with strings attached? Has the Federal Government said, we'll give you $1 billion if you open x-amount of beds, or could it go into more bureaucrats?

DR CAPOLINGUA: There is actually nothing in the Communiqu yesterday that clarifies that. I know that this Government is very keen to ensure that there are benchmarks, that there is accountability, that the money is used responsibly to treat patients, not to go into administration or bureaucrats. So we haven't seen the detail of that, but I would expect that it would be real money going into real treatment outcomes.

There's also a mention of supporting the rural and regional hospitals, which is very heartening to see, because we know that the States have actually been closing down rural and regional hospitals, and the rural doctors who haven't got the facilities ...

DAVID KOCH: So we should follow that up with State Health Ministers to say, what are you going to do with this money? Tell us what you're going to do. Also, extra money for 50,000 new healthcare workers, nurses, and support staff, that's got to be good.

DR CAPOLINGUA: It's an excellent initiative. Up to 50,000 over three years, and of course we welcome that wholeheartedly. Now we have to find the people to come in and engage in those training courses.

DAVID KOCH: Sure. You've been terrific in keeping us up to date over the last couple of weeks. We'll keep in touch, and see where this one is going.

DR CAPOLINGUA: My pleasure.

Ends