The Victorian Health Minister David Davis has outlined the investment of new funding of $440 million  for Victoria’s public hospitals announced as a result of Council of Australian Governments (COAG) negotiations in February this year, but has claimed that the Commonwealth has failed to give Victoria its fair share of health funding. 

 

The Victorian Health Minister David Davis took the opportunity of the announcement of $6.5 million for six emergency department short-stay beds and eight new operating theatre recovery bays  at Melbourne's Alfred Hospital to outline how funding under the National Partnership Agreement on Improving Public Hospital Services would be spent.

 

He said the agreement will fund treatment for an extra 32,000 Victorian patients this year. Funding of $89.4 million will also flow from the agreement to new capital projects across 13 health services (20 campuses) that will increase elective surgery and emergency department capacity and improve patient care.

 

These projects will see the opening of 106 new hospital beds, including at least 60 short-stay beds, six intensive care and additional high-dependency beds. Emergency department treatment will be streamlined with an extra 20 emergency department cubicles plus additional recovery bays, theatres, procedure rooms and day surgery capacity.

 

$115.3 million of the sub-acute capital investment in Melbourne and $61.6 million in country Victoria will provide services to an extra 3,600 patients.

The sub-acute investment will provide 326 new sub-acute beds, centre and home-based care in Victoria over four years, including:

  • $27 million to build 30 acquired brain injury rehabilitation service units and 2 independent living units at Caulfield
  • $25 million for 30 new sub-acute beds to support inpatient services and a community rehabilitation centre at Mornington
  • $13.5 million to build 24 sub-acute beds to support inpatient services at Echuca

Mr Davis said 19 hospitals and health services would share in the sub-acute expansion.

 

However, he said that the Victorian Government was concerned that the Victorian community was not getting its fair share of Commonwealth funding, and that last week's Federal Budget was another example of Victoria missing out.

"Victoria received just $182.5 million for 15 projects under the Health and Hospitals Regional Priority Round, representing around 14 per cent of the $1,328.8 million that was invested in projects across Australia, well below Victoria's population share of 25 per cent. This is a poor outcome compared with $446.4 million for New South Wales, $243 million for Tasmania (including $250 million for the Royal Hobart Hospital Redevelopment) and $163.9 million for Queensland," Mr Davis said.

"Victoria will also miss out on funding for long-stay older patients, receiving only $33.2 million over three years under the National Partnership (NP) on financial assistance for long-stay older patients, representing a 12 per cent share of the available funding. The 2010-11 Federal Budget estimated Victoria would receive $70 million over three years based on a per capita share."

The new funding share is based on a census of long-stay older patients. Victoria has a relatively low number of long-stay older patients due to significant state investment to reduce length of stay.