Commonwealth confirms billion dollar Christmas health cut

The Turnbull Government has failed to use the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) to fix a health funding back hole.

Minister for Health Steven Miles said the Federal Government’s MYEFO confirmed a billion dollars’ worth of cuts to health funding in Queensland.

Mr Miles said despite a formal ruling from Canberra’s own health funding umpire that Queensland was owed extra funding, Canberra was refusing to pay up.

“There is simply no way Queensland Health can absorb this proposed funding cut from Canberra,” Mr Miles said.

“We are not talking about rounding down to the nearest $10 million dollars.

“This is a billion dollars’ worth of healthcare that Queenslanders will not receive.

“If Canberra continues to refuse to pay, it will mean fewer doctors, fewer nurses, fewer operations and longer waits for Queenslanders needing care.

“I’ve asked the Department of Health to do an urgent assessment of what the impact could be across the state.”

Queensland is still owed funding from the Commonwealth for health services provided as far back as 2014-15.

Mr Miles said the Administrator of the National Health Funding Pool – the independent health-funding arbiter – wrote to the Commonwealth Treasurer in April this year advising him that Queensland was owed an extra $138.4 million for health services delivered in 2015-16 and $29.8 million for 2014-15

“To make matters worse, the amount of funding for 2015-16 forms the base for funding for every future year,” Mr Miles said.

“When the entire 2014-15 to 2018-19 period is considered, the Commonwealth funding shortfall could be as much as $979 million.”

Mr Miles said he would write to the Federal Health Minister asking for urgent action.

“The mid-year budget update was the perfect time to resolve these issues,” Mr Miles said.

“But this decision could put patients and staff right across Queensland at risk.”

ENDS

Media contact:          Katharine Wright - 0422 580 342