Big health spend to stem plummeting surgery and ED performances
The ACT budget will pour money into Canberra Hospital and elective surgery amid government predictions for plummeting performances in patient wait times.
The budget papers show the government expects its results in emergency department care and elective surgery will continue to drop this year, with almost all key targets missed.
The government will in the coming year spend $11,500,000 on acute care at Canberra Hospital to support the emergency department, intensive care unit and additional in-patient hospital beds.
The health spend accounts for about 30 per cent of the territory’s total budget.
It will also pour about $16 million next year into elective and emergency surgeries in a bid to improve surgical care and reduce wait times.
There will also be 72 additional beds available in Canberra this year during flu season.
The extra funding will boost the number of surgeries the ACT can complete to 14,000 per year - about 1000 extra per year.
It will allow an additional 22 nurses and seven doctors to provide the expanded service.
About $11 million has been set aside over three years for a new facility for Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service, a 2016 election promise. The majority of the money will be delivered to Winnunga later than proposed, with about $8 million of the funding being delivered in 2020-21.
About $5 million has been allocated in the budget to expand the Hospital in the Home program, giving about 3000 more patients access each year.
There has also been about $12 million provided to build more mental health accommodation.
Most of the $500 million funding needed for the construction and operation of the Spire centre - a new purpose built building at the Canberra Hospital site at Garran connected to building 12 - is now included in forward estimates, with about $60 million in funding still beyond the 2021-22 estimates.
In its pre-election promise, the government said the hospital would be open in about 2022, but tender documents show Canberra could be waiting as late as 2025 for the hospital to open.
The budget outlined the re-accreditation process for Canberra Hospital and the upcoming split of ACT Health as potential risks to the economy, but said it expects to pass the accreditation in July.
The health budget statements outlined a grim prediction for Canberra's performance in elective surgery and emergency department waiting times.
The government set a target of no more than 144 patients waiting longer than clinically recommended time-frames for elective surgery in 2017-18, but it estimates that number will actually surge to 668.
It has a revised target of 430 for 2018-19.
In a huge drop from last year, the government predicts its treatment times of patients presenting at emergency departments will plummet, estimating only 50 per cent of patients have been treated on time, with only 37 per cent of urgent cases treated on time.