Australian public hospitals face growing funding crisis

 08-Feb-16, World Socialist Web Site

Years of under-funding and cost-cutting pressures applied by successive Australian governments have produced lengthening waiting times in the country’s public hospitals, including for critical, potentially life-saving, emergency care.

Image: The Age

According to the Australian Medical Association’s annual hospital report card for 2015, the “growing funding crisis” is set to intensify in 2017, when the health system faces a funding “black hole” as a result of the latest cuts imposed by federal Liberal-National government.

The AMA report found emergency department waiting times worsened in 2014–15, with only 68 percent of emergency department patients classified as “urgent” being seen within half an hour. In other words, gravely-ill patients were not treated within medically safe times. The outcomes remained well outside the 80 percent target adopted by the state governments, which have the frontline responsibility for public hospitals.

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