SA: Health plan bureaucratic band aid: Redmond

AAP General News (Australia)
04-21-2010
SA: Health plan bureaucratic band aid: Redmond

ADELAIDE, April 21 AAP - Health reforms are nothing more than a politically motivated
bureaucratic bandaid ahead of a federal election, says South Australian Liberal leader
Isobel Redmond.

Ms Redmond says federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon cited there would be governing
councils overseeing health, which the Liberal leader says are just bureaucrats whose jobs
will be funded out of the state's coffers.

"There are something like eight different bureaucratic systems set up under these new
arrangements and in nobody's language could it seen to be a more efficient delivery of
health services," Ms Redmond told reporters outside Parliament House in Adelaide.

And it appears as if there will be little financial benefits for the state.

"No extra funding is really guaranteed for the state under this arrangement," she said.

The new system is now pooling money that was already being paid from the state budget
into the hospital system.

"I have a very significant concern that firstly, the money that will be coming through
won't be any improvement for the provision of services," she said.

"And secondly, that a lot of the money will be spent on extra bureaucrats."

Ms Redmond said the only way to describe the federal government's health reforms are:
"A rushed political exercise made for political expediency ahead of a federal election".

Meanwhile, the state's Independent senator Nick Xenophon says, unless it's targeted,
throwing buckets of money at something won't fix the problem.

AAP ahe/it

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