By Dr Thomas Fowles
The NT government is claiming it has increased the budget for the Health Department by $100 million.
The fact is that healthcare demands have outpaced resourcing, and this budget has been an exercise in political spin to hide a $100 million cut to health services.
When asked by the press, Chief Minister Eva Lawler said: “They overspent, or they are on par to overspend by $200 million. I’m not going to give them another $200 million next year, that’s only going to encourage bad behaviour.
“They’re getting $100 million, and they need to work on making sure they are getting their budget back into a better position”.
The department had a revised budget figure for this financial year of $2.18 billion, and have been given $2.05 billion in 2024-25.
NT health is in perpetual crisis. Not due to “bad behaviour”, but because it is an under resourced system with ageing and inadequate infrastructure.
The health system is supposed to be funded in partnership by the commonwealth and states or territories.
However, the current NT government seems unwilling or unable to get the commonwealth to pull their weight.
The National Efficient Price, which is the price of providing efficient public hospital services in Australia, has increased by 4.5 per cent per annum for the past five years. NT hospital funding has not increased by this amount.
There is a mismatch between what hospital services are funded to do, and what they are expected to do.
Despite having one of the sickest, and most remote populations in the country, the NT continues to be underfunded by the commonwealth.
The commonwealth contributes 32 of the cost of hospital activity, versus the national average of 40 per cent.
On top of this, the NT continues to bail out the commonwealth for provision of primary health care, which is a federal responsibility.
The NT pays substantially more for aeromedical retrieval and primary health care relative to other jurisdictions.
Budgeting $100 million less than the cost of delivering healthcare will hurt Territorians over the next 12 months.
Failing to get proper sustainable funding from the commonwealth will hurt Territorians for years to come.
The chief minister has “put the chief executive of Health on notice”.
Dr. Marco Briceno is the 4th CEO in five years. Firing health leadership is not going to solve the ongoing failures of the Territory and commonwealth governments.
ASMOF NT suggests that the Health Minister Selena Uibo supports Dr. Briceno to do his job, and get red tape out of the way of clinicians attempting to deliver safe and efficient health care.
Putting the blame for budget shortfalls on bad behaviour demoralises an already burnt out workforce. This is an attempt to divert responsibility from the Labor government.
Throwing hard working doctors and nurses under the bus to distract from the government’s failures is not leadership. It’s cowardice.
The Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation is the doctors’ union.
Dr Thomas Fowles is an emergency medicine specialist, president of the NT branch of ASMOF, and an executive council member of federal ASMOF.
Been in this system – health – for sometime now, it’s absolutely unbelievable just how many people require health help, it’s the costs of xrays, mri’s, CT Scans, blood tests – often daily and more, dependent upon the illness, then, the plethora of Drs, as a training hospital, there are, seemingly an over abundance of medical staff, but, at any given time, these people are hard at work either saving lives or attempting to, the staff cannot be faulted, as a whole…. hierarchy, however – not all – there are some REALLY GOOD people working in the health system, some not so good, they are merely ‘fill ins’ …. back to the hierarchy seem to think – only some – they’re ‘hot stuff’ – some are, some aren’t, but, the $$$$ this government provide are NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH, if you’re not going to support regional, remote, rural constituents, you’re going to fail badly, which is exactly what is happening with health, same as EVERY other department these clowns underfund, whilst doing what(????)with taxpayer $$$$ – junkets anywhere but the NT? lining their own pockets? I say that because there is NO OBVIOUS IMPROVEMENT ANYWHERE, not even their electorates – look at the monument in Nightcliff, is it utilised to full capacity, given I only go that way two or three times a week, there NEVER seems to be any activity there!!!! What HAS happened with the taxpayer’s $$$$…. we ALL want to know… Education, OMG!!!!Regional, remote and rural schools are truly suffering – WTF is going on? Again, where is the money? Considering the current excuse for an educator hasn’t really advocated for better educational outcomes, considering ALL the study its profile lists, how shameful this is our current CM, SO embarrassing…. yes, I know that belatedly for thousands of students, $$$$ have been tossed at some of those schools, same goes for Selena Uibo, also a teacher by trade, has done NOTHING for her electorate in this regard…. Again, shameful…. turns up with how to vote cards, bus trips to polling booths, food, drinks, what else?????? To ensure she is voted back in…. these people are self promotional, self serving and blow anyone else…. as for the police minister, what a joke that made of the NT…. it’s ALL about the politicians🤮not the constituents….