NSW Health Budget goes backwards under Labor

NSW Hospitals will be approximately $500 million worse off next year as a result of the 2010/11 NSW Health Budget going backwards.

AMA (NSW) spokesperson, Dr Brian Morton said the decreased spending comes despite AMA (NSW) calls to the NSW Government last week to increase recurrent expenditure by at least 9.6 per cent to maintain services.

“The Keneally Government has delivered an effective cut to NSW patients by only delivering an approximate 7 per cent increase in recurrent funding for health,” Dr Morton said.

“Budget papers show recurrent expenditure in health has increased from $14.5billion to $15.5billion. This is an increase of approximately 7 per cent. This includes hundreds of millions of funding from the Commonwealth government secured through the COAG agreement.

“The effective cut in state health expenditure is in direct contrast to State Governments in Western Australia and Victoria who have increased their State commitment to health.

“NSW patients needed this budget to deliver improvements to services now, they cannot wait any longer”.

Media Contact: Tanzeem Parkar (02) 9439 8822/ 0419 402 955

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