Debt-hit Hospital Cuts Jobs
The Sunday Age
Saturday September 21, 1996
SOME Melbourne public hospitals are millions of dollars in debt and are drawing up tough budgets that will mean more cuts to services and staff.
The Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre wants to shed 127 jobs to cut its debt, according to a confidential hospital document obtained by 'The Sunday Age'. It is believed to be more than $12 million in debt.
The document foreshadows cuts to medical staff, allied health services (such as physiotherapy), psychiatric services, outpatients services, administration, pathology and operating theatres.
In a statement on Friday, the North-Eastern Health Care Network, which is responsible for the hospital, confirmed jobs would be cut through "natural attrition" or voluntary redundancy.
The statement said the hospital had been "funded by the Government to treat 6700 more patients in 1996-97 than in 1995-96".
The hospital "will continue to make savings during 1996-97" as a result of the amalgamation of the former Austin Hospital and the Repatriation Hospital at Heidelberg.
The Royal Melbourne Hospital and Monash Medical Centre are also believed to be heavily in debt.
The assistant secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation, Ms Hannah Sellars, said it had information that several metropolitan hospital networks were facing big shortfalls.
Ms Sellars said: "We have been informed by people within the Southern Network administration, which includes Monash Medical Centre, that they are looking at somewhere in the vicinity of an $11 million deficit.
"Similarly, we have also been told by Western Network administration, which includes the Royal Melbourne, that it faces a $16 million debt and the Austin and Repatriation $12.2 million.
"Quite simply, things are already becoming grossly unsafe," Ms Sellars said.
"We've already told the hospitals we are not prepared to facilitate any more cuts to services and staff."
The Australian Medical Association, representing doctors, has met the state Human Services Minister, Mr Rob Knowles, in an attempt to persuade him that Melbourne's hospitals need a cash injection.
The Victorian AMA president, Dr Sandra Hacker, said: "The message was clear. There is no more money for health.
"The fact is that metropolitan hospitals have had at least $33 million taken from them in this budget while, at the same time, being asked to treat 5 per cent more patients."
Mr Knowles confirmed yesterday that the Royal Melbourne and the Austin and Repatriation were running deficits.
He said he was confident both hospitals were managing their finances satisfactorily.
"The important point to remember," Mr Knowles said, "is that, while a couple of hospitals have debts, the overall hospital system has come in on budget."
The Austin and Repatriation budget problem was a result of the hospitals merging, he said.
Recent publicity about the "so-called crisis" in hospitals was overblown and the AMA's figures were wrong.
"We have made a special $5 million grant to regional hospitals," Mr Knowles said, "but an extra $50 million in growth funds has gone directly into the hospital system as a whole."
The Opposition spokesman on health, Mr John Thwaites, said he had been told that the Royal Melbourne was $15 million in debt. At the end of 1994 the hospital was $12 million in debt.
© 1996 The Sunday Age