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	visit now - nsw rural health alliance - visit now

7.20pm Tuesday 09 March 2010

The NSW Rural Health Alliance to take a more pro-active position

With two state elections just around the corner, one within days - a Federal election due before the end of 2010 - and a NSW State election in 2011 - now is the time to have our common interests fine-tuned and clearly expressed.

If your community has concerns regarding the provision of health services in your area, email <info@savepambulahospital.com> to join us in our campaign.

7.35pm Monday 08 March 2010

Today on Sunday - Laurie Oakes and Nicola Roxon Minister for Health and Ageing

7.30pm Monday 08 March 2010

Victoria wants health overhaul details

Victorian Health Minister Daniel Andrews says details of the PM's hospitals overhaul remain sketchy.

Victoria is demanding more details of the federal government's planned overhaul of the hospital system.

7.25pm Monday 08 March 2010 – The Age – Paul Austin

Brumby slams PM on health

Premier John Brumby has stepped up his campaign against Kevin Rudd's health reform package, saying the Prime Minister "hasn't got too many supporters out there" and flagging that Victoria will soon unveil an alternative reform plan.

Mr Brumby yesterday reiterated his demand for an extra $1billion a year in health funding from Mr Rudd, saying the Prime Minister's plan would do nothing for Victorian patients because it contained no new money for at least four years.

The Premier was responding to Mr Rudd's call for premiers to stop "whingeing and moaning" and get behind the Commonwealth plan to seize majority control of public hospital funding.

7.20pm Monday 08 March 2010 – The Australian - Joe Kelly

Keneally defies Rudd on health funding plan over Henry tax review

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally is leading state defiance against Kevin Rudd's proposed health funding reform, refusing to sign up to the plan before seeing details of the Henry tax review.

7.15pm Monday 08 March 2010 - Crikey - Bernard Keane

Ruddivirus: coming to a hospital near you

As if state governments didn’t have enough problems with their hospitals, there’s a new and virulent life form at large in them threatening to infect patients and staff. The Prime Minister in health reform mode (political taxonomy: Ruddivirus) is spreading like wildfire in hospitals across the nation, programmed to turn even the most right-wing surgeon into a rabid centralist and transform old patients who are rusted-on Liberals into fans of that nice Mr Rudd who wants to fix the hospitals.

7.10pm Monday 08 March 2010 - SMH

Victoria wants health overhaul details

Victoria is demanding more details of the federal government's planned overhaul of the hospital system.

7.05pm Monday 08 March 2010 - Written by Barry O'Farrell MP & Jillian Skinner MP

Only NSW Liberals & Nationals Have Plan To Empower Clinicians And Community

Only the NSW Liberals & Nationals’ plan for health districts with local boards will give clinicians and other health professionals a real say on how health services are delivered to the community, NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell said today.

“The NSW Liberals & Nationals have a plan to genuinely engage and empower health professionals and the community through local health boards,” Mr O’Farrell said.

7.00pm Monday 08 March 2010 – Adam Bennett

AMA slams NSW hospital councils plan

A NSW government plan to set up clinical advisory councils in public hospitals fails to involve medical staff in the decision-making process, doctors say.
Hospital clinical councils would be set up in all NSW hospitals to improve collaboration between management and medical staff, state Health Minister Carmel Tebbutt announced on Monday.

The push to give clinical staff a greater say on how hospitals are run springs from the 2008 Garling report into acute care, which called for medical professionals to have a greater role in decision making.

The clinical councils, which will feature medical, nursing and allied health staff, exist in many state hospitals.

But Ms Tebbutt said area health service by-laws would be changed to make sure the advisory bodies were operating state-wide.

6.50pm Monday 08 March 2010 – Mudgee Guardian – Lynn Pinkerton

Fight for our hospitals

The communities of Mudgee and Gulgong will fight hard to prevent the downgrading or possible closure of their hospitals under the Federal Government’s proposed reforms to health.

A list of 117 NSW hospitals senior health clinicians claim will struggle to survive under the reforms was published by the Daily Telegraph on Friday.
Mudgee, Gulgong and Dunedoo War Memorial Hospitals were all listed.

The clinicians claimed the hospitals were at risk because of the pay-for-service model Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was proposing, a claim Mr Rudd said was untrue.

Because the hospitals have fewer procedures, they could see a drop in the funds allocated to them.

Mudgee Health Council chairperson James Loneragan said they would be fighting hard to keep the hospital open if it even looked like there was a chance it would close.

5.25pm Monday 08 March 2010

The dangers for rural health in Rudd’s proposed health care takeover

Don't get too excited about this one

5.20pm Monday 08 March 2010 – Southern Thunderer

Brumby stands up for Victoria as Bartlett caves into Canberra’s Hospital takeover

Hundreds of Tasmanian jobs will be lost and rural and regional hospitals will close under the Rudd/Bartlett health proposal, Shadow Minister for Health Brett Whiteley said today.

6.04pm Sunday 07 March 2010 – WA Today

O'Farrell backs local hospital boards

The NSW opposition has welcomed Mr Rudd's local area boards proposal, but is worried about the risk of rural hospital closures.
Under the plan, local networks comprising small groups of hospitals will manage their own budgets.

NSW health officials have warned as many as 100 small community hospitals may become financially unviable under a proposed payment per-service model for hospitals.

"We support the Rudd government's proposal for greater localism," Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell told reporters on Thursday.

"What we don't support is a plan that cuts back on health facilities in rural and regional NSW."

The coalition has urged Ms Keneally and Health Minister Carmel Tebbutt to fight to protect rural hospitals, especially maternity, surgery and paediatric services.

Ms Tebbutt says she'll study the proposal carefully, but is confident the needs of regional hospitals have been considered.

"The commonwealth has made it quite clear that it is not about closing hospitals," she said.

"They have also always said they understand that regional and rural hospitals can't operate under the same cost structure as a metropolitan hospital," she said.

5.54pm Sunday 07 March 2010 – Daily Liberal – Lynton Grace

Regional hospitals under threat of losing funding

Two regional mayors say their communities will fight tooth-and-nail to prevent downgrading of their hospitals under the Federal Government’s proposed sweeping reforms to health.

The Daily Telegraph yesterday published a list of more than 100 hospitals it claimed were at risk under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s pay-for-service model, a claim Mr Rudd said was untrue.

Because those hospitals have fewer procedures, they could see a drop in funds coming to them.

Included in the list were hospitals in Wellington, Narromine, Cobar, Mudgee, Parkes and Coonamble.

Health minister Nicola Roxon also quashed the claims, yesterday telling the ABC “nothing in the plan” threatened smaller hospitals.

She said a “national pricing agency” would determine the cost of procedures such as hip surgery in areas such as “Dubbo or Grafton” as compared to Sydney.

Despite that, confusion in NSW’s outlying regional centres is growing.

For mining-town Cobar mayor Lilliane Brady, it was “the most ridiculous thing that Rudd had ever done”.

“If he thinks for one minute the people of Cobar will stand for him taking away our hospital, forget about it,” she said.

Cobar’s mines are expected to double to six from three during the next few years, Cr Brady said, meaning Cobar’s hospital needed to be “upgraded”, not threatened.

Parkes mayor Ken Keith didn’t believe smaller regional hospitals were at risk of closing.

“Rudd’s said he’s not going to let that happen,” he said.

“I think we need to let the dust settle and let the states and feds have their negotiations.”

Cr Keith said the proposed reforms could actually “open up funding” for Parkes’ and Forbes’ long-promised new hospitals.

Coonamble mayor Tim Horan wondered if the “vote factor” had come into it.

“It could be more about the population, the numbers aren’t huge here,” he said.

“Coonamble would not allow for it - we’ve fought to get a new hospital, the last thing we want is any downgrade for our services.”

The Prime Minister was adamant “nothing” in the planned Australian Health and Hospital Network “would justify the closure of a single hospital or a single hospital bed”.

5.50pm Sunday 07 March 2010 - Yass Tribune

As I see it with Robyn Sykes

The health reforms announced by Kevin Rudd are ambitious, and herald major changes. Whether those changes are good or bad remains to be seen.

If you are a New South Welsh-person, I suspect the changes are likely to be good. It appears the NSW health system is the most dysfunctional in Australia, while Victoria seems to have the best system. The “Mexicans” may have more reason to be nervous than the rest of us.

I am no expert on health, but I sincerely hope the health minister Nicola Roxon has had a good look at what works well in Victoria, and is intent on keeping the baby and only discarding the bathwater.

5.45pm Sunday 07 March 2010 – ABC News

Abbott warns against 'disastrous' health shake-up

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says all Australians should be very concerned about the Government's $50 billion shake-up of the health system.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wants to take a third of the GST revenue from the states to fund 60 per cent of the public hospital system.

The states and territories are being asked to agree to the plan by the time they meet for a Council of Australian Governments meeting next month.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon says some taxes may rise to pay for it, although she says there will not be any increase to the overall level of taxation.

But Mr Abbott says the plan is a disaster.

"I think that every Australian should be very concerned that Mr Rudd and his ministers can't rule out tax increases to pay for their experimentation with public hospitals," he said.

"It has the potential to close down hundreds of country hospitals, it will add a substantial additional bureaucrats and he can't in the longer term rule out new taxes to pay for it, so all up it's a disastrous plan."

Mr Rudd has again urged people to get behind his plans for the health reform, saying the changes need to happen soon.

"We've got about a month or six weeks to reach agreement on this," Mr Rudd said.

"I would urge all parties to get behind this reform for the future."

Earlier Opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey told ABC1's Insiders that the plan will not improve accountability.

"Canberra has 5,000 public servants in a department of health that does not treat one patient," he said.

"Kevin Rudd's plan creates 200 new bureaucracies and it doesn't add one single bed to the Australian hospital system."

But Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the Opposition should put forward its own ideas.

"I haven't heard the Federal Opposition announce a health policy - other than its plan for more bureaucracy in the form of local hospital boards," she said.

Source

5.40pm Sunday 07 March 2010 – ABC News

PM's health plan 'mirrors NSW opposition policy'

The New South Wales opposition says the Prime Minister's national health plan mirrors its own policy on hospitals.

The Prime Minister has announced a plan to take over primary healthcare and the funding of 60 per cent of hospitals from the states and territories.

The funds would be administered through local authorities who would oversee small groups of hospitals.

The opposition's health spokeswoman Jillian Skinner says the plan is the same as the state Coalition's idea of creating small health districts with local boards.

"It's about devolving the centralised decision making down to local bodies in local districts, engaging clinicians and local people," she said.

"That's exactly what he's talking about - it's almost as though he read our policy."

Ms Skinner says it is now clear the Area Health Services need to be broken up.

But the Health Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, is not convinced.

She says they do more than just run hospitals.

"We have a whole range of other services that are delivered from our area health services: mental health services, community health services, aged care services," she said.

Ms Tebbutt told ABC Local Radio 702 it will cost more if the management of hospitals is handed to local boards.

"We all know that there are efficiencies to be achieved when you can deliver things across a bigger area," she said.

"So we need to work through that because we're not convinced that what's currently being proposed by the Prime Minister is going to deliver a more effective, more efficient outcome for the patient so we'll work through those details."

The Minister says the best outcomes are achieved when hospitals and health services operate as a network.

5.35pm Sunday 07 March 2010 – ABC News

States will agree to health reform, says Roxon

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon says she is confident the states will come on board with the Government's reform plan for the nation's hospitals.

Several states have expressed concern about aspects of the Government's plan to withold some of the GST revenue and fund 60 per cent of public hospitals.

But Ms Roxon has told Channel Nine that it is not surprising that some premiers are calling for extra funding, and that does not mean they will reject the plan.

"Of course they will ask for more money - that's not an unusual position for the premiers," she said.

"But we're determined to get the financing shares and the governance right for the future, so [that] firstly we're confident we're not wasting a single dollar, and secondly, so that additional investments we know will be able to be targetted to the pressure points in the system."

She says the premiers will eventually come on side when they have time to consider the detail of the plan.

"We've given a very clear message not just to the states and territories, but to the community, that we are not prepared to leave the health system as a business as usual situation - we know that's not going to be sustainable," she said.

Ms Roxon, says there will be no increase to the GST to fund the reform, but says some other taxes may need to be raised.

"We have made absolutely clear that the GST will not rise - everybody from the Prime Minister down is giving that guarantee," she said.

5.40pm Sunday 07 March 2010 – SMH - Stephanie Peatling And Joel Gibson

PM delivers ultimatum to the states

The Prime Minister has rubbished the states' complaints about lack of health funding as ''absolute nonsense'', saying they should accept his reform package and concentrate on fixing their underfunded transport and infrastructure.

Mr Rudd threatened the end of co-operative federalism if agreement could not be reached at a D-day meeting with state premiers in six weeks.

5.35pm Sunday 07 March 2010 – Canberra Times

Health system's triumphs often overlooked

The Rudd Government launched an offensive on health which has been described, repeatedly, as the biggest overhaul of the national system since Medicare.

The subsequent debate, sometimes hysterical, over responsibilities of state and federal jurisdictions, has dominated the issue. We've seen bickering over lack of detail, conspiracy theories, over-bureaucratising, under-funding, accusations of facility closures and much more.

And, to an extent, it is to be expected. Any major shift in policy must surely be heavily scrutinised. We are, in the end, discussing the health and welfare of the nation.

The essential criticisms of the Rudd Government's restructure in which one-third of GST revenues from the states and territories will be directly injected into hospitals, via local hospital networks are based on the fine detail, or lack thereof.

The Government has left itself wide open to criticisms because of it. And the cynicism applied to big government announcements during election years knows no bounds.

But, on the flipside, many, many stakeholders want to see change. It is an undeniable fact that our health system is sick: over-reliance on hospitals, long waiting lists, horror stories of misdiagnosis which in the end boils down to a stressed and overstretched medical profession.

The only cure is to take a radically new approach.

But as we focus more and more on the problems of the task, we should also step back and consider those working within the health-care system and the effects such commentary has on the morale of a profession which saves lives.

5.30pm Sunday 07 March 2010 – The Australian - Sean Parnell, Queensland political editor

Nats seize on fears of hospital closures

State fears that commonwealth health reforms will put more pressure on regional and remote services, or force their closure, have provided the conservatives with another means of destabilising Labor governments.

Give the Rudd government's reforms make the states responsible for funding, or scrapping, services deemed inefficient, NSW, Victoria and Queensland are questioning Canberra's total financial contribution and how it will determine its payment for procedures in different areas.

Their concerns, particularly the somewhat premature claims from NSW that 117 hospitals are at risk of closure, prompted Kevin Rudd yesterday to accuse some states of running a "deliberate fear campaign".

Victorian Premier John Brumby was the first to question the equity of the funding proposals, while his NSW counterpart, Kristina Keneally, has written to the Prime Minister with a list of concerns, and Queensland Premier Anna Bligh yesterday warned she would not accept anything that disadvantaged regional and remote services.

While Mr Rudd maintained his plan did not, in itself, involve closures, and reiterated that regional and remote services would continue to be funded appropriately, federal Nationals leader Warren Truss seized on the issue, demanding the Queensland government reveal how many of its hospitals were at risk of closure.

"Kevin Rudd's scheme worsens everything that is bad in Queensland Health," Mr Truss said.

"It provides no new funds for frontline services and adds another expensive bureaucratic layer to a health system that is already groaning under the weight of a bloated bureaucracy.

5.40pm Saturday 06 March 2010 - PM with Mark Colvin

Rudd: State health bureaucrats running a fear campaign

PM covers a broad spectrum of issues relevant to all sections of Australia's geographically and culturally diverse community.

5.40pm Saturday 06 March 2010 – SMH - Kate Benson

New hospital roof a huge waste of money, say doctors

Doctors at one of the state's most rundown hospitals are furious at plans by the state government to spend $1.5 million on a new roof over the operating theatres, three weeks after a review claimed the hospital was unsafe and should be rebuilt.

5.07pm Saturday 06 March 2010 - Perth Now

Hospitals reform: Rudd says states running 'scare campaign'

Claims that small and rural hospitals could be closed under the Federal Government's hospital plans are part of a scare campaign by the NSW and Victorian governments, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.

4.57pm Saturday 06 March 2010 – Herald Sun - Ben Packham

Rural hospitals fear for funding

Dozens of small Victorian health services could struggle to survive under Kevin Rudd's proposed hospital takeover.

As the Prime Minister accused Victoria of running a scare campaign over his health blueprint, Hepburn Health said it would have difficulty remaining viable under the plan.

4.47pm Saturday 06 March 2010 - SMH

A grand script but detail is sketchy

Kevin Rudd's complex public health reform raises big questions, write Mark Metherell and Julie Robotham.

4.45pm Saturday 06 March 2010 – SMH Louise Hall

Keneally denies scare campaign

The state government has denied accusations by Kevin Rudd that ministers or senior health bureaucrats are running a scare campaign over the closure of smaller hospitals in an attempt to derail his national reform agenda

4.37pm Saturday 06 March 2010 - Daily Telegaph – Simon Benson

NSW demands no hospital closures

NSW may refuse to sign up to the federal health reforms until Prime Minister Kevin Rudd guarantees no small hospitals will be forced to close.

In a letter to Mr Rudd, Premier Kristina Keneally has hinted the state would not come on board unless future funding increases were secured and the issue of who would bear the cost of rolling out the restructure was resolved.

Editor: This is a surprising reversal of form. For the past 12 months and more the NSW government, through its Area Health Services, has been working hard to close small rural hospitals or reduce services in an effort to save money.

4.27pm Saturday 06 March 2010

Govt continues hospital revamp campaign

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says any premier who thinks the public is happy with the current health system is 'kidding themselves', as the government continues its campaign to sell its hospitals revamp to reluctant state governments.

Victoria and NSW in particular have been vocal opponents of the federal government's plan to take over the funding of state-run hospitals by redirecting some of the states' GST revenue to a national system.

The prime minister toured Sunshine Hospital in Melbourne's west on Saturday, using the $200 million expansion of the hospital as an example of capital works that would be funded federally in future under the government's plan.

'We as the Australian government will take on the dominant funding responsibility for the future expansion of operating theatres, and the future expansion of hospitals themselves, like the one here at Sunshine,' he told reporters.

He reiterated his call for state premiers and chief ministers to agree to the health reforms, which would involve the government directly funding local hospital networks to run public hospitals.

'Any premier I think is kidding themselves if they think that local people are 100 per cent satisfied with how the health and hospital system is at the moment. They're not,' Mr Rudd said.

'I would call on all premiers and chief ministers to put the blame game to bed and get on with the business of properly reforming and funding the system for the future, one that is funded nationally, and run locally.'

5.54pm Friday 05 March 2010 - ABC News - online political correspondent Emma Rodgers

NSW denies sabotaging Rudd's reforms

New South Wales Health Minister Carmel Tebbutt has denied Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's claims that state bureaucrats are trying to sabotage his hospital reforms.

3.29pm Friday 05 March 2010 - Ellis Jones

Exciting times ahead in the healthcare sector

March started with a buzz of excitement (at least in the healthcare world) as PM Kevin Rudd announced the proposal the Commonwealth Government will put to the states at COAG in April. Hot on the heels of the 3rd Intergenerational Report and much anticipated since the NHHRC report in 2009, this proposal outlines major structure reforms where the Commonwealth Government:

Becomes the majority funder of public hospitals;
Takes over all funding and policy responsibility for GP and primary health care services
Dedicates around one third of annual Goods and Services Tax (GST) allocations currently directed to state and territory governments (referred to throughout this document as‘states’) to fund this change in responsibilities for the health system;
Changes the way hospitals are run, taking control from central bureaucracies and handing it to Local Hospital Networks; and
Changes the way hospitals are funded, by paying Local Hospital Networks directly for each hospital service they provide, rather than by a block grant from the Commonwealth to the states.

3.27pm Friday 05 March 2010 – Tweed News - James Perkins & Patrick Williams

Thumbs up for health reform

When it comes to the Tweed hospitals, anything is better than the current system.

That is the view of North Coast hospital campaigners in the wake of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s release of his long-awaited hospital reform package.

Murwillumbah Hospital Support Committee chairman Ian Ross and Lismore Nationals MP Thomas George have given the plan their preliminary approval.

Small clusters of hospitals will be run by “local hospital networks”, and Canberra will fund and run all primary health care outside hospitals.

Hospitals will be funded for treatments delivered from 2012 and will have to work to a new national standard and reporting regime.

Mr Ross hoped the local hospital networks meant a return to the hospital boards not seen since the early ’90s.

“A hospital should be run by locals. It works better that way,” Mr Ross said. “I would like to see it return to something similar to the days when we had hospital boards.”

Mr Ross hoped the network would give doctors and nurses more of a say.

“I hope it brings back the old type of the hospital boards from the ’90s. While Rudd has made references to local control, I’m not sure how he intends to implement it.”

3.25pm Friday 05 March 2010 - australia.world-countries

Cabinet splits over tax and tactics

Kevin Rudd faces damaging cabinet splits over tax policy, election strategies and political tactics as his response to poor polling erodes the hallmark solidarity of Labor's first two years in government.

3.23pm Friday 05 March 2010 - Barry O'Farrell MP, Andrew Stoner MP & Jillian Skinner MP

NSW Cannot Suffer More Labor Health Cuts: Nsw Libs & Nats Will Stand Up For Regional Patients

The NSW Liberals & Nationals stand firmly against any more Labor cuts to rural and regional hospitals and other health services, NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell, NSW Nationals Leader Andrew Stoner and Shadow Minister for Health Jillian Skinner said today.

“After 15 years of Labor in NSW, rural and regional families cannot afford to suffer any further Labor cuts to local health services,” he said.

“Kristina Keneally must guarantee that any changes to health funding agreed by her State Labor Government will not further disadvantage regional NSW.

3.21pm Friday 05 March 2010 – Illawarra Mercury – Angela Thompson

Rudd health reform: small hospitals like Bulli 'will live'

Little hospitals like Bulli would fare well under a pay-per-service federal funding system and it is a myth that small community hospitals are overly expensive to run, a Wollongong health researcher says.

Professor Kathy Eagar rejected suggestions the proposed payment model will shut down small sites because they won't attract enough payments to cover running costs.

"We don't have any evidence in NSW that the smaller hospitals cost more to run than the larger ones, quite the reverse," said Prof Eagar, professor of Health Services Research and director of the Centre for Health Service Development at the University of Wollongong.

"The picture in NSW is that bigger hospitals cost more, even after adjusting for the mix of patients.

"Bulli Hospital, under this sort of model, will actually look very efficient."

The proposed model, known as casemix funding, is Prof Eagar's research specialty.

It assigns an "efficient" cost, determined by an independent umpire, to each service provided by a hospital, so that total funding depends on the number of services provided, and their level of difficulty.

Prof Eagar's comments are at odds with reports, sourced to NSW health officials, that up to 100 small community hospitals may become financially unviable under the reforms.

3.19pm Friday 05 March 2010 – Coffs Coast Advocate - Belinda Scott

Health plan is a winner

Doctor Alan Tankel says Coffs Harbour is likely to gain substantially from the Prime Minister’s proposed National Health and Hospitals Network.

Dr Tankel, the acting chairman of the hospital’s Medical Staff Council, an emergency medicine specialist and the head of the Coffs Harbour Emergency Department, said it was likely hospitals like Coffs Harbour would have more money available for direct patient care under the proposed Rudd model.

“I have believed for a long time that a lot of our major problems within the health system are caused by cost shifting (between the Federal and State governments),” Dr Tankel said.

“It is an endemic problem of the Australian health care system . . .

“I have worked in four different States and there is enormous wastage and duplication.

“These proposals go a long way towards addressing that.”

3.17pm Friday 05 March 2010 – SMH – Louise Hall

Keneally calls on other states to support reform

The Premier, Kristina Keneally, said NSW cannot afford to reject Kevin Rudd's health changes because without a new funding model, health costs would soak up most of the state budget within two decades.

Ms Keneally also called on other premiers and chief ministers not to ''play politics'' with health reform despite the Prime Minister declaring he expected the states and territories to oppose the plan.

3.15pm Friday 05 March 2010 – SMH - Natasha Wallace

Doctors prescribe a $350m rural rescue package

The federal government will have to spend about $350 million each year to entice doctors to the bush or rural hospitals will continue to be closed or downgraded, making any health reform pointless, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia says.

The association is pushing the government to accept its rural rescue package in the next budget, which includes loadings of up to 50 per cent for specialist doctors working in very remote areas, in order to plug huge workforce gaps. Otherwise, it says, the government's guarantee of national standards of care would not be met.

3.13pm Friday 05 March 2010 – SMH

States will not block health reform: PM

The states will not be allowed to block health reform, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd insists.

Reiterating his belief that "health bureaucrats" are using scare tactics in NSW to undermine plans for a federal takeover of public hospitals, Mr Rudd said the reforms would be going ahead whatever.

"We will speak directly with the states between now and when the Council of Australian Governments convenes in the first part of April," he told reporters in Sydney on Friday.

"I've written to all the state premiers and chief ministers, and there is going to be huge amount, to use the technical term, of argy bargy between now and when the Council of Australian Governments meet.

"Some may agree, some may disagree ... some may tell us to jump in the lake, but you know something, that will not stand in our road."

Mr Rudd was speaking after he and federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon toured parts of St Vincent's Hospital and the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney to meet patients.

Mr Rudd said no hospitals would close as a result of the reforms, which involve stripping states of some GST revenue and using it to increase the commonwealth's contribution to funding of state hospitals.

A report in Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper alleges that 117 smaller NSW hospitals will close due to Mr Rudd's funding reforms.

The chairman of the Sydney Illawarra Health Service's health advisory council, Bob Farnsworth, has said all of NSW's smaller hospitals are at risk under the federal reform plans.

Mr Rudd has accused "health bureaucrats" of running a scare campaign over the issue.

"There is absolutely nothing in any one of the reforms that we would put forward in this plan that would cause any hospital in the country to close," he told the Seven Network on Friday.

"What you have at present is a campaign... by various state governments in Victoria and NSW against any change.

"Therefore you have a deliberate fear campaign that is put out there by various state health bureaucrats at the moment in NSW about hospital closures."

Asked later if the NSW government was orchestrating the campaign, Mr Rudd told reporters at St Vincent's: "Why the NSW health bureaucrats are out there saying these sorts of things .. (is a) matter for them, you can sort that out."

3.11pm Friday 05 March 2010 – The Australian - Joe Kelly

Rudd slams Labor states' scare campaign on health reform

Kevin Rudd has accused Labor governments in NSW and Victoria of running a scare campaign against his $50 billion takeover of the nation's health system.

Some critics and health professionals argue the new plan could force the closure of up to 117 hospitals in NSW, with smaller and regional hospitals being most at risk.

But this morning the Prime Minister labelled the claims a fear campaign run by health bureaucrats who may have the backing of state politicians.

And he specifically singled out NSW and Victoria for criticism.

``What you have at present is a campaign ... by various state governments in Victoria and NSW against any change,'' he told the Seven Network's Sunrise program.

``There is absolutely nothing in any one of the reforms that we would put forward in this plan that would cause any hospital in the country to close.

``They are trying to use a fear campaign to stop fundamental reform.''

3.09pm Friday 05 March 2010 – BigPond News

Keneally worried about small hospitals

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally has indicated she is concerned about the possible fate of small hospitals under the federal government's reform plans, but has not directly responded to accusations her government is running a scare campaign.

9.12am Friday 05 March 2010 - Daily Telegraph - Simon Benson

Is your hospital at risk?

This is the list of 117 NSW hospitals senior health clinicians claim will struggle to survive under Kevin Rudd's health reforms.

They include services in remote areas of NSW, regional centres, as well as inner-city hospitals in Balmain, Rozelle and Auburn.

All are currently block-funded and considered financially unviable under the Federal Government's plans for a pay-for-service model.

They don't perform enough medical procedures to fund their own existence.

As a war of words erupted yesterday between Mr Rudd and the states over the funding of small community hospitals, NSW Health Minister Carmel

Tebbutt, who supported the plan in principle, suggested an agreement on funding must be reached before the Keneally Government would sign on.

Mr Rudd's radical health reform includes a proposal for Canberra to take over 60 per cent of the cost of funding public hospitals by taking a third of the states' GST revenue and reallocating it under an activity-based model.

It currently funds between 35 per cent and 40 per cent.

"The NSW Government does not support the closure of rural and regional hospitals, which provide essential healthcare services and are heavily relied on by local communities," Ms Tebbutt said.

"Any moves by the Commonwealth to fund hospitals based on their activity must take into account these circumstances."

Mr Rudd, who has threatened to take the issue to a referendum if the states do not agree, was adamant there was nothing in his reform package that would force any hospital closures.

"We're going to have opposition from health bureaucrats, state health bureaucrats, state politicians across the country," he said.

"My appeal out there to right-minded, right-thinking premiers, state health ministers, state politicians and state health bureaucrats and others, is let's get on with the business of fixing this system."

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon would also not rule out tax increases to pay for the reforms, while Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said there was nothing in the reforms about closing hospitals.

NSW Health officials, including some of the country's leading surgeons, claimed more than 100 NSW hospitals were at risk of becoming financially unviable under what is known as a casemix - or activity-based - funding.

Professor Bob Farnsworth, chair of the Sydney Illawarra Area Health Service's health advisory council, said Mr Rudd's reforms were "appalling" and "potentially a disaster" for NSW.

"It is taking healthcare in NSW back 20 years," he said.

The List:

Under threat

District Hospitals
Ballina, Bateman's Bay, Bulli, Casino and District Memorial, Cessnock, Cooma, Cowra, Deniliquin, Forbes, Gunnedah, Inverell, Kempsey, Kurri Kurri, Lithgow Health Service Macksville, Maclean, Milton and Ulladulla, Moree, Moruya, Mudgee, Murwillumbah, Muswellbrook, Narrabri, Parkes, Queanbeyan, Singleton, Bellinger River, Byron Bay, Glen Innes, Gloucester Soldiers' Memorial, Narrandera, Pambula, Quirindi, Scott Memorial Hospital, Scone, Springwood, Temora, Cootamundra, Tumut, Wauchope, Yass.
Community acute surgery
Young

Community acute non surgery
Bonalbo, Bulahdelah, Campbell Hospital Coraki, Cobar, Condobolin, Coonabarabran, Finley, Gulgong, Holbrook, Mullumbimby War Memorial, Murrumburrah-Harden, Nelson Bay and District Polyclinic, Portland, Prince Albert Memorial, Tenterfield, Walgett, Wee Waa, Wellington Hospital, Bindawalla Wyalong.

Community non acute
Balranald, Barham and Koondrook Soldiers' Memorial, Batlow, Berrigan War Memorial, Bingara, Bombala, Boorowa, Canowindra Soldiers' Memorial, Coonamble, Crookwell, Cudal War Memorial, Dunedoo War Memorial, Dungog, Eugowra Memorial, Gundagai, Guyra, Hay, Hillston, Lockhart, Long Jetty, Manilla, Merriwa, Molong, Narromine, Nyngan, Peak Hill, Tingha, Tocumwal, Tottenham, Tullamore, Walcha, Warialda, Wentworth, Werris Creek, Wilson Memorial Hospital, Murrurundi, Woy Woy Hospital.

Psychiatric hospitals
Bloomfield, Coral Tree Family Centre, Cumberland, James Fletcher, Kenmore, Macquarie, Morisset, Rozelle Hospital, Thomas Walker

Nursing Homes
Bourke District Hospital, Braidwood Jerilderie District Hospital

Multi-Purpose Hospitals
Balmain, Braeside, Coledale, David Berry, Greenwich Home of Peace.

Sub Acute
Mercy Care Centre, Albury, Mercy Care Centre, Young, Port Kembla District Hospital, Sacred Heart Hospice, St Joseph's Hospital, Auburn

Source