THE states will be offered hundreds of millions of dollars to improve public hospitals and treatment of the elderly and disabled as part of a renewed assault on health reform by the Howard Government.Canberra's latest funding offer is designed to relieve pressure on hospitals by moving elderly patients, requiring long-term care, from general wards to lower-cost facilities.
Additional funds will also be made available to encourage the states to move younger disabled patients from nursing homes and hostels into more appropriate housing.
John Howard will unveil the new health agenda in February during his next meeting with Labor premiers. The Prime Minister is keen to develop a national mental health strategy and has received cabinet approval to have this discussed at the next Council of Australian Governments meeting.
The reforms are an effort to streamline the health system by removing demarcation lines between Canberra and the states.
"What we are going to do is put a number of proposals to respond to the key pressure points in health," a senior government figure said.
The health plan is designed to neutralise complaints by Labor premiers that the Howard Government does not contribute enough funding to fix the system's chronic problems.
In a further peace offering to the states, the Government will stump up about $800million in the latest round of national competition payments.
These are paid to the states to encourage them to introduce competition in sectors such as energy, retail and water.
The competition payments will be made for reforms undertaken this financial year.
It is understood some states, including Western Australia and South Australia, have lagged in areas such as liquor regulation. But overall the states have largely complied with the reform agenda set by the National Competition Council.
Canberra is also expected to approve the sale of Medibank Private, with a scoping study expected to be considered by the cabinet early next year.
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