Rosalie Woodruff MP | Greens Health spokesperson
The Minister’s axing of 80 full-time positions in the health service is completely unexpected and raises grave concerns about the impact on patients' health.
If this just about reducing duplication in the system, then the Minister should guarantee that money from these cuts will be transferred into employing more frontline health staff. Otherwise, it’s just cutting government services to satisfy the Treasurer’s push for small government.
The number of patients admitted to hospitals has gone up by over 10% across the state in the past year. Our doctors and nurses are struggling to absorb the extra work.
We have an older, sicker and poorer population than the rest of the country, but Tasmanian hospitals have the lowest capacity because of lack of funds.
The government got an extra $266M in GST allocation this year because of our additional health needs, be we haven't seen it put into the health system.