The never-ending federal-state blame game about hospital funding is in full swing in Victoria and Queensland, where the Health Minister has warned that the equivalent of 2,000 full time nursing jobs could be cut in the next six months.
In the article below, University of Queensland researcher Dr Mark Bahnisch looks beyond the political biff, to give an overview of the Queensland cuts, the push to privatise services, and concerns about governance.
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The Qld Government strategy: attack the Feds, don’t mention the P word
Dr Mark Bahnisch writes:
After the headline announcements of cuts to staff employed by Queensland Health corporate office, and to health prevention programmes in last year’s state budget, the New Year has begun with some consequences of the Campbell Newman LNP Government’s budget settings becoming apparent.
The reorganisation of governance in the state health system, devolving budgetary decisions to Health and Hospital Services Boards, has led to a series of controversies around cuts not just to jobs but to programmes and facilities.
Boards and HHS CEOs are constrained by the amount of funding made available by Queensland Health.
Decisions now being taken, and in prospect, are having a severe impact on both urban and regional health services, their communities and workforces.
In South East Queensland, the Children’s Health and Hospital Board has axed school nurses, closing 126 hearing clinics, as well as impacting on other preventative health measures. At the same time, meetings called to consider “workforce redesign” at the Royal Children’s Hospital and in Metro North District have led staff to fear more job cuts are on the horizon. It seems that authorities are not being transparent about the scope and timing of the process.
Meanwhile, Wide Bay is just one region where local feeling about service closures and potential privatisations is running high.
It hasn’t been sufficiently noted that the combined impact of many of these decisions is the privatisation of health services and facilities.
The Queensland Nurses Union has compiled a list of cuts, and their assessment of impact, which shows multiple closures and privatisations.
Legitimate questions about safe staffing and fair remuneration are raised, as is the question of whether this move was ever envisaged in the LNP’s election policy.
The LNP’s pre-election health policy is hardly a detailed document.
The Government is paying a political price for the decisions of the Boards, with the local nature of the services enabling a range of stakeholders and activists to campaign effectively. Independent MP Peter Wellington has also charged that the Government is hiding behind the Boards to avoid responsibility for its cuts.
Wellington describes the Boards as Government “puppets”.
Perhaps in response, Premier Campbell Newman has announced that when the Boards’ membership is renewed in May, a doctor and a nurse should sit on each body.
But this could be read more as providing political cover, particularly when the Premier’s preference that nurses should be QH employees implies that there might be a conflict between their advocacy and governance roles and their employment rights. There has already been criticism of the political allegiances of some Board members. For instance, Mike Horan, a former Nationals Leader and Health Minister, is Chair of the Darling Downs Board.
The LNP’s policy document stated a commitment to:
“Returning control of health services to local clinicians and communities”.
It’s worth observing too, that the Party committed to “investing in health awareness and prevention”.
At present, control – exercised through budgetary and staffing constraints – is still firmly with the Government in George St and QH Head Office in Charlotte Street.
The current firestorms around the decisions of the Boards, and the continuing opposition to their decisions by bodies such as the AMA and the QNU, point to the fact that in no way are these boards either accountable to communities, or to the best in clinical and health management thinking.
It would be much better to have a governance model combining genuine community, patient and workforce representation with a Clinical Senate model to have input on health service practice and planning.
Similarly, health impact assessments and social assessments should factor into decision making at the local level.
There is no reason, either, why local community representatives should not be elected. This would be in line with the governing party’s emphasis on decentralisation of decision-making.
Is that something the Government “Can Do”?
• Dr Mark Bahnisch is a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre Medical Education Research and Scholarship, School of Medicine at The University of Queensland. A sociologist, he has for many years been active in policy debates and in social consultation. He has recently been researching and publishing on Health Workforce and Health Services.
The National Health Service in the UK has been severely cutting costs in the same way as Queensland Health, and many nursing positions have gone. Unqualified health care assistants, who are much, much cheaper to employ than nurses, have been employed in their place. In addition, agency nurses are being used to try to provide care in hospitals. Adverse events have soared, with patient deaths and near misses. On 25 January, the Sunday Telegraph, reported “NHS hospitals are hiring agency nurses at rates of up to £1,600 a day in a bid to cope with rising staff shortages”.
This is exactly what is going to happen in Queensland when 2,000 more nursing jobs go. In other words, the costs are going to soar and there will be no savings at all. At the same time, much pain will be caused with so many people losing their jobs, and the brain drain from Queensland will mean that the health service will probably never recover. Of course, this means a grim time ahead for Queenslanders if we and our children get sick.
Professor Linda Shields, Townsville.
The minute there is a mention of cutting health jobs or privatising services there is an outcry. FACTS: 1. The private health sector is now much more efficient and cheaper at delivering services than the public. 2. There are far too many nurses now in Qld Health. 3. Over a third of QH nurses are employed on IT projects, in admin, and do no nursing at all.