More than $20 million will be cut from Melbourne’s inner-city hospitals so the Gillard Government can attempt to achieve a surplus by ripping $1.6 billion from hospitals around the country.
Liberal Senator Scott Ryan said he is outraged by the cuts, which include ripping funding from this year.
“These reckless cuts by Labor are a threat to elective surgery and other important local health services. The cuts are both retrospective and ongoing,” Senator Ryan, the Liberal Party’s patron senator for the federal seat of Melbourne, said.
Among the cuts are $8.4 million from Melbourne Health, including the Royal Melbourne Hospital; more than $5 million from St Vincent’s Hospital; $1.2 million from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute; $3.6 million from the Royal Children’s Hospital; close to a million dollars from the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital and $2 million from the Royal Women’s Hospital.
Senator Ryan believes the Government’s dodgy use of population figures to justify the cuts proves that Labor can’t be trusted.
“I know the managers of our health services and all our local health professionals work hard to provide quality care for locals within their budget. They don’t expect the Government to pull the rug out from underneath them mid-year. Labor just can’t be trusted to do what they say,” Senator Ryan said.
Senator Ryan believes the Government’s ‘cooked books’ approach is motivated by Labor’s desire to achieve a surplus in an election year.
“The Gillard Government is cooking the books again, like it did with the May Budget. It’s clear that the Gillard Government cares only about its re-election and nothing for the health of people in Melbourne.”
Other Gillard Government health cuts:
- $2.8 billion cut by means testing of private health insurance rebates.
- $700 million cut by not paying the rebate on private health insurance increases above CPI.
- $390 million cut by completely removing rebates from Lifetime Health Cover loading.
- Over $1 billion robbed in dividends from Medibank, that should have been putting downward pressure on premiums.
- Another $1 billion cut from dental health by abandoning chronically ill patients to public lists.
- Hundreds of millions in multiple cuts to the Medicare Safety Net, including obstetrics and IVF.
- Limiting new medicines onto the PBS by politicising the process.
- $1.6 billion cut from health payments to the States and Territories.