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August 03, 2007
Howard is back on his game the commentators say. You can see the grit in his eye as the Howard Government makes a health-funding takeover of the Mersey Hospital in Devonport, Tasmania. It shows that health care is more about winning elections rather than good public policy. It's a political winner in Braddon, but it's an electoral move that makes no sense in terms of strategic health planning. Indeed, it cuts across all the hard work and community consultation that has occurred in the context of the changing nature of hospitals and health care in the region.
The proposal is to establish a trust to rescue the hospital, funded by the Commonwealth but managed by the local community. We have the assurances by the Health Minister, Tony Abbott, that this is not a "power grab", but rather a necessary intervention to prevent the closure of a regional hospital. "Closure ' gives the game away as the Mersey hospital was never going to be closed.
Alan Moir
No one was informed of the commonwealth intervention. It had no connection to state health planning. It ignores health workforce shortages. It's a white knight approach that rides roughshod over months of planning to save the Mersey hospital despite declining intensive care admissions and an ageing population. Abbott says that this kind of intervention may be a model for the future.
Hayden Walters says that in terms of Tasmania's north-west coast, Tasmanians have been left the poisonous legacy of having two district general hospitals pretty close together (a 20-minute drive) with one at the Mersey (near Devonport) and one at Burnie. He adds:
Because of the realities of local funding and manpower constraints, neither hospital is adequately funded, adequately staffed, or adequately supported with technology and staff. Both have been marginally viable for some time. There have been seven external reports, usually produced at enormous cost, over the last 20 or so years, all of which have come out saying there needs to be just one viable and sustainable general hospital serving the north-west coast population (and the smaller population down Tasmania's west coast). In general, Burnie is probably the most suitable place for this but there has been a lot of argument between the communities and no consensus. AMA policy has been that the best way to proceed would be a new Greenfield site somewhere that everybody could agree on (probably Ulverstone).
The Devonport and Mersey Hospital has had enormous problems over the last five years or so in attracting adequate quality staff. Things have recently come to a head and the Intensive Care Unit had to be closed because of dangerous staffing levels.The emergency department is under huge pressure for similar reasons.
Walters says that the Federal Government could have been constructive and invest their $45 million a year to properly construct a single excellent acute general hospital for the north-west with good primary health care. Or different levels of hospital care--low care (rehabilitation and aged care) in Devonport, intensive level care in Burnie, and specialist care in Hobart.
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Invasion and occupation is flavour of the month at the moment. It looks as though the States are going to be invaded and occupied by the Federal Government. What happened in Tassie is just a skirmish, a sign of things to come.
Will NSW and QUEENSLAND finally have a civil war instead of a football game?