Health "crisis" ploy fuels privatisation

by Rohan Gowland

Hospital funding was again an issue in the media in NSW last week when a 
call by senior doctors for an urgent injection of $250 million funding for 
"front-line" services was rejected by the Health Minister, who said, 
"[more] money doesn't necessarily deliver better health".

This latest joust between doctors and the NSW Government forms part of the 
wider struggle of public hospitals, their doctors, nurses and staff, to 
continue to provide services in the face of government cutbacks while 
demand is increasing.

The "crisis" is actually a political football. The game is played like 
this: cut funding, create a crisis, say the public system can't cope 
without private sector involvement, have a review to justify privatisation.

The aim of the game is to dismantle the public health/hospital system and 
replace it with a system made up of private sector profit-driven, user-pays 
businesses where health care is just another product for sale.

For the public, the privatisation agenda means less access to quality 
health care and higher medical costs.

Private health care is not the "band-aid" to cure the problem of the 
underfunded public health system — it is the problem.

The NSW State Government's response is to set up yet another review which, 
if past reviews are anything to go by, is likely to recommend changes that 
will facilitate further privatisation.

The answer to the situation is obvious and does not need a review to find 
the solution — just fund the public hospital system properly.

Instead, the Federal Government is bleeding the public system of $1.5 
billion every year in order to sustain the ailing private health insurance 
funds.

The Federal Government is desperate to keep these private funds alive 
because they are an essential part of the privatisation plan. This plan 
involves US-style managed care, where insurance companies decide what 
treatment a patient gets and who provides it.

For Medicare

However, the deserting membership of the insurance funds have demonstrated 
that people prefer the universal Medicare system.

The hospital cuts are now causing real suffering for many patients and even 
some deaths.

In NSW last week the case was reported of a woman waiting three-and-a-half 
hours for surgery to adjust a metal plate in her head, then being told 
there was no bed. A few weeks later she waited this time for 11 hours. 
Again the operation was cancelled.

Emergency departments are clogged with people on trolleys queued up in 
corridors awaiting a doctor.

Ambulances go from one hospital to another trying to find one that will 
admit their patient. NSW ambulance officers recently protested against 
this, and Victoria faces similar problems.

In South Australia a few weeks ago a person died on a trolley waiting for 
emergency treatment at a major metropolitan teaching hospital. The hospital 
concerned only about one week later implemented the $46 million budget cuts 
imposed by the last State Budget. Eighteen more beds in the hospital were 
closed.

SA nurses protested and picketed the 18 beds at the hospital for a week, 
but management still closed them.

Broadened campaign

"In response to that we have now broadened the campaign to oppose budget 
cuts and further service cuts", Gail Gago, SA State Secretary of the 
Australian Nursing Federation, told The Guardian.

Privatisation of public health is at the centre of health issues in SA. Ms 
Gago said that the Modbury Hospital privatisation experiment "has been a 
complete failure". Healthscope [the private management] have had to re-
negotiate their contract a number of times because they couldn't fulfill 
their original contract.

Significant components of the contract are secret because of "commercial 
confidentiality", and tax-payers' money is still going into this private 
for-profit organisation without the accountability and transparency that 
should be available to tax-payers.

"There were guarantees that services would not be cut and they were. The 
community feels that they were lied to. It was a dismal failure", said Ms 
Gago.

Co-locations, that is, private hospitals on public hospital land, has gone 
ahead at the Flinders Medical Centre, and there is continuing outsourcing 
(privatisation), particularly of support services like cleaning.

Co-location had also been planned for Modbury, but the private management 
is running so badly that they don't have the money to build the private 
hospital. So, they've converted a wing of the public hospital into a 
private hospital.

But failure has not deterred the Federal Government and other privateers 
from supporting private health funds and playing with the health and lives 
of many people.