A savings target of $450 million has been proposed by the Sustainable Budget Commission says the South Australia Health Department CEO Tony Sherbon. As a result of this a State parliamentary inquiry has been told that up to 4,000 South Australian health jobs could be lost. This Commission was employed for effective cost cutting measures.
Dr Sherbon says, “You could not save 450 million dollars in the health system without affecting both hospital out of hospital clinical services.” He feels that the final savings will be much less. A spokeswoman for Health Minister John Hill described the cuts as 'theoretical', because Cabinet is yet to consider the Commission's recommendations.
Dr Sherbon pointed out that his department last financial year overshot its budget by $210m. The Health Department was allocated an extra $75m in the mid-year budget review on January 28 to help prevent its overspending for 2009-10. However there has been a further $135m spending thereafter. He also said that this proposed saving is “hypothetical”. The state's total health budget is about $4.2 billion a year. The opposition claims the real amount is closer to $2bn.
He said, “I am not able to detail any savings strategies because the government has not yet detailed its response to the Sustainable Budget Commission report…We were given a target of $450m as part of that process. You could not save $450m in the health system without affecting hospital, out of hospital and clinical services.” Dr Sherbon said if he had to cut 4000 jobs, “there are a large number of support workers, which would be our primary -focus for staff reductions”. He said there were about 29,600 full-time staff employed by the Health Department, an increase of 2.5 per cent compared with 2008-09. The number of full-time nurses rose by almost 5 per cent in the past year, he said.
The Australian Medical Association and the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation said such cuts would have a major impact on front-line services across the state's hospitals, meaning reduced patient care.
Treasurer Kevin Foley has delayed the state budget until September 16 so the SBC can find savings of at least $750m. Opposition frontbencher Rob Lucas, chairman of the budget and finance committee said, “If the savings task for health is reduced to, say, $250m a year, then other departments will have to absorb even higher cuts to try and preserve the budget surplus…It is also now clear that prior to the (March state) election, Mr Foley has deceived ratings agencies about delivering balanced budgets.”
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