Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Seniors) Share this | Hansard source

Sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker. We all know the impact that is happening. Of course, the health workers in the Royal Hobart Hospital system are really struggling to meet demand. They're doing their absolute best but they are under enormous stress. It's got to the point where the AMA has said:

Cuts to hospitals’ budgets will see patients not receiving the care they need when they need it and elective surgery patients having to wait longer for their operations, putting lives at risk.

Simon Judkins, the ACEM president has said:

This is pushing the hospital and its patients to the edge of a cliff.

The current state government has told the Royal Hobart Hospital staff to brace for $50 million in further cuts. How can Tasmania possibly sustain this? It is not okay. I see the health minister walking out of the chamber; he's not even going to stay for the rest of the debate about the health system! I can't believe that he would just walk out like that. This is outrageous.

We've seen the higher out-of-pocket costs which the member for McMahon talked about. This really impacts on areas like Tasmania, where people are on lower-than-average incomes. If you can't afford those out-of-pocket costs you put them off. You simply don't go to the doctor. You don't do it; you wait until you are really, really sick and then you end up in an emergency department. We can see that that's what's happening in Tasmania all the time.

It's the same with specialists. Specialist waiting times in Tasmania are outpatient waiting times through the Royal Hobart Hospital because people can't afford to go to a specialist and pay the out-of-pocket costs. To give the House an idea: for a neurology outpatient waiting list, the average wait is 202 days. In gynaecology, the outpatient waiting list is an average of 154 days. This is just before you see the specialist; you then have to wait for any surgery on top of that. This is just for getting in to see a specialist. How, in Australia, when we are such a wealthy nation, is this allowed to happen, particularly under what is supposed to be a universal healthcare system? It is not universal when people are making decisions not to access services because they simply cannot afford them.

When this government talks about, 'If you have a go, you get a go,' that's clearly not happening to those Tasmanians who want to access the health system. It's clearly not working for those Tasmanian workers in our health system who are struggling with the demand, who are struggling with underfunding and who are becoming more and more stressed as the system becomes more and more stressed, as the hospital is put on high alert and codes almost daily because of what is happening in the hospital. It is simply not okay.

During the campaign, we had the members for Bass and Braddon, while they were candidates, going out there and talking about how they were going to do more for health in Tasmania. Well, it wasn't true; they were not telling the truth. They should come into this place and explain to Tasmanians exactly what is happening to the health system in Tasmania and how they're going to fix it.

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