More Rudd promises, plans and bureaucracy for health |
3rd March, 2010 |
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today announced another level of bureaucracy for the nation’s health system, when he should have been taking a level away.
The Leader of The Nationals, Warren Truss, said more that more than 27 months after the election and Mr Rudd’s grandiose promises, the Prime Minister had failed to outline any new practical plan to reduce hospital waiting lists or improve health care.
Despite painting today’s announcement as the biggest since Medicare, Mr Rudd failed to mention that it was the Coalition that set the path for increased support to general practice and primary care.
We have little idea how this plan is to be funded, apart from $50 billion being given to the states in GST payments and then through some sort of unexplained process clawed back to be spent by the Commonwealth.
The public needs to know who is in charge and who is responsible when something goes wrong, and instead of clarifying that issue this announcement clouds it.
The Coalition’s plan for community controlled hospitals to put budget, staffing and capital requirement decisions into the hands of the people who work in and use the hospital has sadly not been taken up by the Government.
Last Sunday, Mr Rudd told the ABC’s Insiders program that when it came to health reform, “we didn't properly, I think, estimate the complexity of what we were embarking on”.
That has never been more apparent today, Mr Truss said.
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