Rudd to lobby premiers over hospitals

8 Mar 2010, 7:50 pm   -   Source: AAP
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Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will take his case directly to the state premiers over the coming weeks to get his mega-hospitals reform over the line.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will take his case directly to the state premiers over the coming weeks to get his mega-hospitals reform over the line.

The states and territories are holding firm to their demands for more information before they sign up to the plan, which aims to strip them of GST revenue and funding control.

Mr Rudd has spent the past week talking tough, demanding acquiescence by the next COAG meeting in April but on Monday appeared to soften his approach somewhat.

He's promised to sit down with the states and territories individually to hear their concerns before then, a task to be shared by his Health Minister Nicola Roxon and Treasurer Wayne Swan.

"In the month ahead I will be taking the case strongly for our health and hospitals network across every state and every territory," he told reporters in Hobart.

"We don't underestimate how difficult it will be.

"We expect all these negotiations to be tough, to be robust, but we are determined to bring about real action for the improvement of hospital services across Australia."

He was "encouraging" premiers and chief ministers to get on board, saying Australians were "crying out" for these changes to happen.

It's a step back from his stance in recent days, when he accused NSW and Victoria of staging a "scare campaign" over the potential closure of country hospitals.

Mr Rudd faces an uphill battle if his reform package is to get the go-ahead, with criticisms that the overhaul is grand in scale, but short on detail.

With only South Australia and Tasmania supporting the plan in full so far, the other states and territories say it's impossible to give up control of hospitals without further information.

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally has questions about the government's promise to cut red tape.

"If we are going to move from eight area health services to 24 or 25 hospital networks, each with their own CEO, each with their own management structure, potentially, as I understand it, each with their own board, that does create additional bureaucracy," she told Macquarie Radio.

"It does create additional costs.

"And so has that been factored into the transition, and how are we going to ensure that no state is worse off, if they have to change the management structure?"

Victoria, meanwhile, is after a 50-50 hospital funding split, as opposed to the government's proposed 60-40 split with the commonwealth taking the heavier burden.

Health Minister Daniel Andrews also queried the lack of new money under the federal government's scheme.

"How will this work, where's the detail?" he asked on ABC Radio.

"If you want to treat more patients and you want to treat them more quickly then you need more money and this plan offers no new money for four years."

Near 80 per cent of Australians support the commonwealth's vision for the nation's hospitals, according to a new Fairfax poll.

Mr Rudd said he didn't need polls to tell him Australians were ready for reform, adding the lead-up to the April 11 COAG meeting will be a "critical month" for negotiations.

"Working families are sick and tired of bits of sticky tape being applied to the system, a bandaid here and a bandaid there," he said.

The states and territories should sign up to the plan, then "the details in each state, including here in Tassie, I'm sure that will be sorted out over time."

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