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State LNP Governments’ prioritising budget surpluses over quality health care is going to cost lives, says Jenny Haines.
NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner along with the likely outcome of her budget cuts.
LIBERAL – NATIONAL Party Government’s in the NOB States (Newman in Queensland, O’Farrell in NSW and Baillieu in Victoria) are showing their true conservative economic credentials when in power.
There must be surplus budgets. This is dogma to these governments. To achieve that, savage cuts to health, education, welfare services and the public sector are being put in place. The people of the States must pay for the impact of the excesses of the global financial crisis on the States’ Budgets. Unemployment must rise, so that wealthy investors can be reassured by the State’s credit rating that it is a safe place to invest.
All of this is a foretaste of what is to come at Federal level, if and when the Liberal – National Party Coalition, led by Tony Abbott, win the next Federal Election. No one can say they weren’t warned!
As part of the implementation of this program of cuts in NSW, Gillian Skinner, Minister for Health, NSW, announced on the 13th September 2012 that $3 billion would be cut from health services in NSW over the next four years. This was just after Adrian Piccoli, Minister for Education, announced $1.6 billion cut in the States education services.
This amount includes $775 million from the imposition of a “labour expense cap” announced for every NSW government department in this year’s budget. A further $2.2 billion would be cut from NSW Health in “efficiency savings”. Gillian Skinner said that the money cut as part of the labour expenses cap would go back to Treasury as consolidated revenue, but she insisted at the time of the announcement that the $2.2 billion would be redirected to front line clinical services.
The NSW Opposition Leader, John Robertson, questioned whether the money would be redirected to frontline clinical services and warned the cuts could mean the loss of 3,600 jobs in the health sector. However, Mrs Skinner said it was “not necessarily jobs that will be cut”. She said the savings could be found by cutting overtime, or not relying on locum doctors or agency nurses. The decisions would be made by local health district authorities but, she insisted, nurses would be exempt. What she does not explain is how the work could be done more efficiently without the use of agency staff, who fill the large number of vacancies for registered nurses and enrolled nurses on a shift by shift basis to ensure the delivery of a safe standard of care.
Then on September 24th 2012, Gillian Skinner re-announced that overtime payments for health workers and the use of contract workers and agency staff would be cut in order to save $89 million in this year’s budget. Mrs Skinner acknowledges that the 5.4 per cent increase in this year’s health budget, to deliver $16.4 billion in recurrent spending, would not keep up with rising costs and patient demand. Hospitals will be expected to deliver an extra 50,000 emergency department visits, 30,000 overnight hospital stays and 2000 elective surgery procedures this year. Mrs Skinner said hospitals would just need to be “more efficient”. What this means, in effect, is that already overworked staff are now to be expected to work even harder and, come the time for the negotiation of the next wages round next July, they cannot ask for any more than a 2.5 per cent wage increase.
In all of this, Gillian Skinner is saying that she is protecting nurses’ jobs, but cutting overtime. But there is already a lot of overtime that is not paid now, as it is supposed to be taken as time in lieu — but the time off never actually eventuates. And there is a huge amount of overtime being worked due to the short staffing. So, cutting overtime is not going to fix any problems — it is just going to make them worse. Much worse.
The Unions, the NSW Nurses Association, the Health Services Union, and the medical unions are going to have to be a lot more active here if nurses and other health system staff are to be protected from exploitation.
NSW Health are offering redundancies in the Hunter New England Area. There are many experienced nurses who hope they will offer redundancies elsewhere, as they want to get out — and this is in a system that is in desperate need of experienced staff as mentors for the largely young, inexperienced workforce.
And in a sign of the madness of placing budgetary aims over safety in the delivery of health care — health system managers are now bringing in Assistants in Nursing in community mental health. These are untrained staff with, maybe, a Certificate 3 from TAFE, working on crisis teams with people who may need admission to mental health hospitals — this is just plain dangerous. These inexperienced staff will not know what they are looking at — and is bound to cost lives.
(Jenny Haines is former general secretary of the NSW Nurses Association.)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
7 Comments
This is a well written article by Jenny. Blind Freddy could ‘see’ just how all of the cuts from health and education will impact on all of the Eastern states both in the here and now and the future. Where does the LNP think that those who are being retrenched will be able to make payments into the tax coffers. Oh, I forgot, they will have to go onto social security until they can find any suitable jobs. Oh well, that just won’t be the states worry as this money will come from the federal coffers.
As for all of those poor souls who lose their jobs and their families who will not be able to sustain their way of life. Never mind about them, never mind the rest of the workers who will now have to work doubly hard to carry the work load to provide services to the general public.
Can’t these idiots see what damage they are causing all because they want to get the ‘figures’ back into the black too quickly.
The LNP keep referring back to how they are the best managers of the finances of this country – they are living in the past. What they have difficulty with is recognizing that we live in different times now what worked for them then, definitely won’t work now. Why? Because times have changes so quickly in the past five years especially world wide.
These extreme right wingers who are trying to win back power need to be well and truly exposed for what they truly are, a party with no social conscience.
I can’t understand the actions of the LNP. How can Newman make these cuts while at the same time giving 100 million plus to the racing industry. Cutting of things like the premiers literary awards, why? Education and health are core functions of state governments and yet more cuts? I don’t know if it is too far-fetched, but I don’t think they actually mean to govern in the collective interest, but instead want to slowly dismantle government services to contract out the work to their big financial backers. They are like a Trojan horse, unwittingly let them in and then they destroy the place. Apparently the joke in Brisbane now is how no one will admit to having voted for them.
Don’t you accept that when there is not enough revenue to pay for the existing level of care and people are not prepared to contribute more themselves:
-by buying additional insurance (insted of, eg lottery tickets);
- adopting preventive habits;
-not visiting emergency rooms
A slightly higher level of risk in the system would be a normal outcome.
What do you want: more revenue (taxes, higher levies, etc), dropping other priorities that are more popular (sports, roads, etc) or less care and more efficiency. Do not say the system owes X a job because that is not the world we live in.
@ Geo:
You do not understand democratic politics (one reason I never considered it for the Middle Kingdom, I preferred the Mandate of Heaven).
In democratic politics professional politicians compete (compete individually or in groups, with or without “beliefs”) for influence by buying votes, which if successful they earn back by dispensing favours. Whoever is most credible at promising the highest price for votes (some of the favours dispensed) gets them, and his/her credibility is created/nurtured by publicity financed by the prospect of favours to non-voters like campaign financiers and media. The trick is to target the right degree of over-promise to the right audience. That is why in democracies the key role is for creative marketing people and -strategists. Brand content should never be such that the brand cannot be repositioned as the market for votes requires.
Labour’s main mistake:
If Labour had treated Murdoch with the respect a potent protection racket deserves (like Blair did in the UK and Brown not), they would have obtained already some important benefit on the cheap. O’Farrell and his mates understand him much better and do not offend, while the federal coalition signals the old man’s vanity and interests will be prioritised. The one thing this government does not understand is that Murdoch is extremely good value for money and winning his favours highly efficient. Which means there is more “money/electoral resources” left for things that get votes.
Of course no one cares about surpluses as such, except at the state level, where the incoming coalition gets to lack the policy space to reward their own core supporters. Those supporters do not want higher taxes, expect health care and roads to be better than under labour and want games instead of culture (the ones that want it can afford it and do not need subsidies) .
The result of yet another aspect of democratic politics: the opportunity for terminal gvts to adopt a scorched earth strategy (like the NBN,refugees, lack of debate on the GST (urgently needed!). NSW and Queensland demonstrate the predicament the coalition will have to face if it wins power, or the certainty that if Labour gets just across the line in 2013, that will really be the last term for a long while. It is thus rational for labour in its current electoral position to stress the health of the current budget and promise excessively. That would poison Abbott’s well if he wins (as likely) while the current Treasury stance can be invoked to undo these promises, if the got scrapes across. Very good politics…
Kangxi – yes I accept there is not enough revenue and personally I would be prepared to pay a higher medicare levy if it would help pay for the health system. The State and Federal Governments have primary health programs in place trying to get people to take more care of themselves and spend their income wisely. There have been efforts for years to get people to go to their GP rather than EDs but in many areas the wait to get in to your GP can be up to 6 weeks. We are facing the situation where we need to raise more taxes to pay for the services the States need to provide and politicians need to just do it and cop the whingeing if we are to pay for the health, education and welfare services our society needs.
I have worked in the health system for 35 years and the health system is a social resource that looks after all the people our society forgets about and doesn’t care about. These are often people on low income, with disabilities, with mental health problems, suffering from the results of trauma etc. It is all very well saying they can just link in with easy solutions, but they cant. They dont have the financial, personal or mental health resources.
I am not sure what being nice to Rupert Murdoch has to do with the health system in the Australian States
The Conservatives think that people don’t get sick and can live without, only private health insurance holders with top cover are deserving for care and treatment. It’s the worldwide Conservatives core fundamental policy which is the “slave & master” rule!
Liberals back to their old ways.
Cut health services and the aged die much quicker also save on pensions.
Track record of it.