PM rejects claims of hospital job losses

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has rejected claims that up to 20,000 people will lose
their jobs under the federal government's planned health reforms.
Responding to a reporter's question about rumours of the cuts, the prime minister
waved off the claim as ridiculous fearmongering.
"There will be a fear campaign every other Thursday about why we should not get on
with the business of fundamental reforms to the health system," Mr Rudd told
reporters at Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital on Friday.
"Last week it was about closure of country hospitals. That's absolute nonsense.
"As far as this fear campaign, I would simply describe it in the same sort of terms.
"We have spent too many decades delaying reform of the health and hospital system
... too many decades pushing it to one side hoping that a bandaid would do when, in
fact, much more radical surgery is needed."
Under sweeping changes, Canberra will take over 60 per cent of funding for state-run
public hospitals, redirecting some of the GST revenue that currently goes entirely
to the states.
Mr Rudd wants a response from the states and territories on the plan before an April
11 meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).
Mr Rudd described a meeting with NSW Premier Kristina Keneally on Friday about the
reforms as "successful" and "productive".
"We had a long, positive, productive discussion about the future direction for this
national health and hospital network," he said.
The prime minister said Ms Keneally raised some specific questions about elements of
the reforms, related to the operation of local hospital networks and long-term
funding for the healthcare system.
He said there would be no negative impact on the states and territories, and one
third of the GST from the states would go towards building a hospital fund for the
future.
Mr Rudd said he would now be "burning the shoe leather" as he travels around the
country talking to other state premiers about his hospital reforms.
The federal government would begin implementing the network from July next year, Mr
Rudd said.
NSW Premier Kristina Keneally says she has a "lot of hope" for positive change after
her meeting with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Ms Keneally said she and Mr Rudd agreed that healthcare delivery and funding must
change.
"The funding model must improve," she told Sky News in an interview on Friday.
"The prime minister and I had a good, frank and full discussion today, and one that
left me with a lot of hope," she added.
NSW has generally been supportive of the changes.
But the state has raised concerns about how the reforms will hit smaller regional
hospitals and how reduced GST revenues will fit in with the yet-to-be released Henry
Tax Review.
Ms Keneally on Thursday released a discussion paper on the reforms which will be
distributed to health professionals and experts attending a state government seminar
next week.
Meanwhile, Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has called on the government to
announce 3500 extra public hospital beds.
"The one change that would really lift the level of services in Australia's public
hospitals is more public hospital beds," Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney.
"If the prime minister is serious about making a difference to public hospitals any
time soon he would announce three and a half thousand extra public hospital beds."
It follows, Mr Abbott said, that more beds would require more staff.
"We need more beds and we need more doctors and nurses who can service those beds,"
he said.
"The Rudd government is very bad at actually delivering new services ... we only
have to look at the disastrous home insulation project to see how this government
can get things so badly wrong."
Mr Abbott said the government needed to explain to the public exactly how it would
implement its proposed health reforms.
"It is very important that there is a clear implementation strategy so that people
don't think that the Rudd government will make as big a hash of public hospitals as
they have made of the disastrous pink batts program," he said.
He added that Mr Rudd's promise that the health reforms would have no negative
impact on the states and territories can't be trusted.
"We can't have any confidence that what the prime minister says is true until he
releases the (Henry tax) report," Mr Abbott said.
"I call on the prime minister to release that report, the government has had it
since before Christmas, the fact that they have sat on it for so long makes me think
that it is, for them, a ticking time bomb.
"It does, I suspect, have enormous ramifications for the states, enormous
ramifications for taxpayers, for working families and in particular for very
important industries like the export mining sector."
Mr Abbott also complimented state Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell.
"I think Barry is by far the most effective NSW opposition leader that we have had
since the change of government here," he said.
"I think Barry is getting it exactly right."