HEALTH AGREEMENT DOESN’T GUARANTEE PATIENT SERVICES
21-April-2010
Kevin Rudd’s claimed agreement on health funding has done nothing to guarantee improved patient services in health, Sophie Mirabella, Federal Member for Indi said today.
“This so-called agreement is going to do nothing more than leave the control of health funding in the hands of the states, the very people Kevin Rudd promised to take out of the loop,” Mrs Mirabella said.
“There are so many questions which are not only going unanswered, they are being dodged by both the Prime Minister and his health minister.
“For example, we don’t know:
- how many hospital networks there are going to be in Victoria or the north east;
- how the states are going allocate the funding they receive through the health funding pool.
“Premier John Brumby claimed this deal meant another 332 beds for Victorian hospitals, but how are they going to be allocated?
“The bottom line is that this is just another broken promise from the Rudd Labor Government.
“He promised to take over the health system by mid-2009 and he didn’t, he promised to take control of funding from the states and he hasn’t.
“How can we support yet another broken promise?
“Kevin Rudd and his cohorts, both state and federal, have made a dog’s breakfast of programs such as the insulation program, the Building the Education Revolution, immigration and the ETS.
“People’s basic health is now being put in the hands of these people.”
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