SENATOR DEBORAH ONEILL

Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Health

Senator for New South Wales
MEDIA RELEASE
2 December 2014

REPORT REVEALS ABBOTTS HEALTH SYSTEM

WILL BE A DISASTER
The Senate committee investigating the nations health system has confirmed the
Abbott Governments health policy will cause serious and long-term problems,
perversely inflate costs, increase the burden of disease and risk the public health
system.
The report, tabled this afternoon in the Senate, contains five crucial
recommendations to urgently address the Abbott Governments assault on health.
Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Health, Senator Deborah ONeill, said the
decision to release the interim report was made after evidence gathered at 15 public
hearings to date identified a disturbing weight of evidence from health experts and
practitioners about the damage being done to the health system by the Abbott
Governments Budget.
The committee has heard from witness after witness about the disastrous effect Mr
Abbotts $7 GP tax will have on the health of the nation.
We have heard submissions that range from calculations that hospital emergency
departments will be log-jammed under Tony Abbotts plans, through to the dire
prospect of the sick delaying seeing a doctor until its too late because of the cost of
a consultation and the hike in prices for medication. The concerns are that broad.
This is what professionals from across the medical spectrum are telling the
committee, this is not politicians speaking.
Members of the public from patients and concerned citizens to carers have told
hearings of their present situation, their fears for the future and the stress they are
already experiencing as Tony Abbott dismantles aspects of the system.
Key to the Senate committees recommendations is a call to drop the $7 GP copayment and review the replacement of 61 Medicare Locals which is already
underway with 30 so-called Primary Health Networks.

Medicare Locals, established by the previous Labor Government, were just what the
name suggests, a grassroots system that linked patients with local medical services
that addressed health issues unique to the region, and unique to the patient,
Senator ONeill said.
In my area, for example, the Central Coast Medicare Local will be replaced by a
mega-region that stretches from Gosford to the Queensland border.
Such a demographically and geographically diverse mega-region cannot possibly be
adequately serviced in a sense of the needs of a local community. Will a grower in
Tenterfield have the same health requirements as retiree in Terrigal?
Its a scenario for stretched resources, disconnected services and poor health
outcomes.
The committees recommendations demand that the government:
immediately abandon its plan to implement the $7 patient co-payments to see
a GP;
as a matter of urgency provide greater certainty in regards to the
maintenance of services provided by Medicare Locals particularly in areas of
rural and remote Australia that may be impacted resulting from the decision to
abolish 61 Medicare Locals and establish 30 Primary Health Networks;
take immediate steps to reinstate funding to Indigenous health organisations
and ensure that the particular challenges facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Australians are effectively analysed and responded to; and
given the very limited efficiencies to be gained, cease the planned merger of
the Organ and Tissue Authority and the National Blood Authority.
Further, hidden within the Abbott Governments agenda are provisions in the Budget
that will cost the sick more for pathology and diagnostic imaging.
The abolition of the bulk-billing incentive for healthcare professionals for X-rays,
MRIs, cat scans and ultrasounds will increase the costs for those services, which will
be passed these on to their clients.
Evidence to the committee from the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association
reveals patients will be forced to pay $95 upfront for every X-ray, $380 for every CAT
scan, up to $160 for every mammogram and $190 for every ultrasound.
Tony Abbotts Budget also plans for an increase to the Pharmaceutical Benefits
Scheme (PBS) co-payment. The increased PBS co-payment will add an extra $5 to
the cost of each PBS prescription from July 2015.
The public needs to know what a desperate and chaotic state the health system will
descend into under Tony Abbotts proposals.
His changes to healthcare are based on the ill-informed notion that Medicare is
unsustainable. This, as the committee has found, is patently wrong. If Abbott and
Dutton get away with this it will destroy the notion of universal healthcare we know as
Medicare that has been central to our nations wellbeing, Senator ONeill said.

Senate Select Committee on Health First Interim Report

http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/Committees/Senate/committee/health_ctte/first_interi
m_report/report.pdf
ENDS
Contact:

Anne Charlton

0400 433 743