• Footscray, Yarraville, Braybrook Star

By Charlene Gatt

9th March 2010 11:05:40 AM

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WESTERN Health Chief Executive Kathryn Cook thinks the Federal Government has the right prescription for the nation’s health.

In a landmark announcement last week, the Federal Government said it would increase its share of public hospital running costs from 35 to 60 per cent by re-directing one third of GST revenue from the states to health and hospitals.

The government will also take over full funding responsibility for out-of-hospital services, including GPs, mental health services and local health clinics.

The plan, which was one of the key recommendations from the government’s National Health and Hospital Reform Commission, aims to slash emergency treatment and elective surgery waiting times by boosting services at GPs and other out-of-hospital services.

If the new system is approved by the states, the Federal Government will put away $50 billion of GST revenue during the next three years, meaning the states will see no financial gain until 2013-14. Hospitals will be run by local hospital networks in the same way that Western Health runs the Western Hospital in Footscray, Williamstown Hospital and Sunshine Hospital.

Ms Cook said it made sense for the State and Federal Governments to simplify funding streams. “We welcome a reform process where the Commonwealth and the States are working together to find a solution to improve the long-term capacity of the health system to deal with an ageing and growing population,” she said.

“The Commonwealth is proposing groupings of hospitals similar to Western Health. We believe that Western Health is a good model – providing a range of health services for a whole region.”

The reforms have been dubbed the biggest changes to the health and hospital system since the introduction of Medicare.

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