Local doctors and nurses to be locked out of Kevin Rudd’s health Networks

June 15, 2010

North Coast doctors and nurses will be locked out of Kevin Rudd’s new Hospital Networks, with State bureaucrats retaining their grip on the ailing health system, Federal MP Luke Hartsuyker said today.

The revelations are detailed in the COAG agreement signed by the States and the Commonwealth and have been exposed at a Senate inquiry. “The COAG agreement signed with the States is clear, Mr Rudd and the Labor Premiers are only prepared to allow clinicians external to a Local Hospital Network on to that network’s Governing Council,” Mr Hartsuyker said.

“While the Prime Minister maintains this charade that local health professionals will have a say in how Local Hospital Networks are managed, the truth is the opposite. This will restrict the capacity of all hospitals to respond to the need of their communities, but it will particularly hurt smaller regional hospitals. Hospitals such as Bellingen, Maclean, Macksville, Coffs Harbour and Kempsey need to have representation on these networks to ensure that a local clinical perspective is provided to the Networks.

“If the Network’s Governing Council is going to choose what services are delivered at these local facilities, it’s essential they receive some clinical input from those who are working locally on the ground.”

Mr Hartsuyker said a Senate Inquiry had lifted the lid on the way Kevin Rudd’s new Hospital Networks will work. “The Australian Medical Association told the Senate Inquiry that the States could remain firmly in the “driver’s seat” in health. The AMA President Dr Andrew Pesce said there were concerns that nothing would change - that everything could remain the same. Dr Pesce reiterated comments in the AMA submission that the intergovernmental agreement will not end the blame game, but instead merely provide different opportunities to undermine the ‘game’.

“There are serious question marks over Kevin Rudd’s health package and the public is being misled by the Rudd Government’s deceptive advertising campaign which promises a ‘federally funded – locally managed’ health and hospitals system. The campaign is misleading and simply wrong and needs to be withdrawn or at the very least changed to reflect that local does not appear to mean local.

“The Prime Minister should come clean that he was expressly locking local clinicians out of local management. Just like with the mining industry, Mr Rudd is spending millions of taxpayer dollars to argue his partisan political case on health and he’s not telling people the truth.

“The Rudd ‘reforms’ are nothing more than a facade which won’t deliver better outcomes – the States remained in charge of hospitals and all that Kevin Rudd has done is pour billions of extra dollars into the State Government’s to enable him to say he was ‘reforming’ health.

“It looks like business as usual for the foreseeable future,” Mr Hartsuyker said.