Transcript: Dr Hambleton, Meet the Press, Channel Ten, 21 August 2011
Transcript: AMA President, Dr Steve Hambleton, with
Hugh Riminton, Michelle Grattan and Steve Lewis
Meet the Press, Channel Ten
Sunday, 21 August 2011
Subject: Asylum seekers; private health insurance; national health reform agreement
HUGH RIMINTON: Welcome back, this is ‘Meet the Press’. Australia’s doctors have weighed in on the issue of our treatment of asylum-seekers. Take a listen to this.
DR STEVE HAMBLETON, AMA PRESIDENT (Wednesday): The AMA believes the system of mandatory detention of asylum-seekers is inherently harmful to the physical and mental health of detainees.
HUGH RIMINTON: AMA Health’s Steve Hambleton joins us now. Good morning Dr Hambleton. The key question, I guess, is how harmful is it for asylum-seekers to undergo mandatory detention?
DR STEVE HAMBLETON: Well, it is enormously harmful. These are damaged people already coming into this country with all the problems they bring with them. Some of them have been through torture and some of them have been through physical health problems but the mental health issues are getting worse and worse the longer people are in detention. There are people who are there more than a year, there are children, there are about 350 children in detention currently. In Darwin alone there are 179 and 81 of those are actually unaccompanied and they should not be there.
STEVE LEWIS: Why is the AMA all of a sudden exercised about this particular issue? I do not recall the AMA speaking out about this issue, which has been around a long time, going back probably several decades?
DR STEVE HAMBLETON: We have a committee looking at youth and child health and public health and they have really been concerned about this and also our paediatricians and our psychiatrists are giving us feedback, and telling us about some of the terrible stories that we’re hearing. We’ve had a child with a serious suicide attempt at nine-and-a-half years of age. That is just shocking. We’ve got four and five-year-olds who are actually on hunger strike with their parents.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: So what do you think the answer is? Do you think these people should be out in the community almost immediately they arrive?
DR STEVE HAMBLETON: Look, the problem is that many of these detention centres are in very remote locations and it is very difficult to get health services in there. In the community, there is access to schools, there is access to good health care, there’s access to good psychiatric support. Particularly for these children, they should be in the community.
STEVE LEWIS: Dr Hambleton, moving onto another issue – the means testing of the 30 per cent private health rebate likely to come before the Parliament this week or in coming weeks. Does the AMA support the Government’s aims to introduce a means test?
DR STEVE HAMBLETON: Look, this is a big issue. We have two major reports with different conclusions. One says it’s going to cause an exodus from the private health insurance, and one says it isn’t. What we want to see is a balance. In fact, we want to see a compensation package guaranteed before this goes before the Parliament so if, in fact, people do flood the public hospital system, there is money to make up for that.
STEVE LEWIS: That is one of the concerns raised particularly by medical specialists in regional areas, that if this goes ahead there will be a switch from private to public health. Private hospitals in the bush will close down and no longer be profitable. Do you agree with that assessment?
DR STEVE HAMBLETON: There are two lots of research. Our own assessment is more aligned with the government’s assessment …
STEVE LEWIS: You don’t think there will be a big switch from private to public if this is introduced?
DR STEVE HAMBLETON: Our research does not show that but we want to make sure there is a compensation package ready to go before this legislation goes up.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: What would be the dimensions of that compensation package and how would it work exactly?
DR STEVE HAMBLETON: If there is a shift into the public sector we know our public hospitals are under pressure all around the country already. If there is a shift there is a great amount of work being done in the private sector and if this goes to the public sector, those long waiting lists will blow out even longer.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Are we talking about how much money here? And after all, this issue has been around for a couple of years. It’s already been rejected by the Senator a couple of times. Surely it needs to have – we need more precision on it by now?
DR STEVE HAMBLETON: Well actually, with our health reform package we are going to be able to measure what happens in our hospitals. We have activity-based funding through the Federal Government’s health reforms. We will be able to measure this and we’ll be able to know whether people are transferring from private to public so that has to be paid for.
STEVE LEWIS: You have raised the issue of the health reform agreement which has been signed by the Commonwealth and the States but Julia Gillard is set to water down key aspects of this deal, particularly the one that Kevin Rudd brought forward several years ago. Do you think the States really get it and do you think there will be increased accountability or is there enough in this deal that allows the States to essentially get away from that level of responsibility?
DR STEVE HAMBLETON: There is no doubt that the States are squarely in charge of health once again. And that is the difference between the Kevin Rudd package. We do see that there is increased transparency, that is very important so we can measure who is doing what. We know that there will be a single funding pool and we will be able to measure where that actually translates into the services so certainly the States are squarely in charge of health again. We need to keep them accountable.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Would you like to see the system ultimately move to a single funder, or at least like something like Kevin Rudd was proposing which would have the Commonwealth in a very dominant position?
DR STEVE HAMBLETON: Well, certainly that was our policy from the beginning: that there be a single funder for health to end the blame game to make sure there is one level of Government accountable for health care, to make sure sufficient money was going in, sufficient beds were available to treat patients, and to get the waiting lists down.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: This is just a step along the road, you think that governments in the future should do more to go down that path?
DR STEVE HAMBLETON: Well, we have a way forward that we can actually, I guess, hold the States accountable now but I suspect the blame game has changed but not entirely gone.
HUGH RIMINTON: OK, Dr Steve Hambleton, we thank you for joining us today from Brisbane. Thanks also to our panel, Michelle Grattan from ‘The Age’, Steve Lewis from News Limited.
22 August 2011
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