Public hospitals eye cuts to jobs, services

Hundreds of jobs in hospitals may be axed and operations cut as the state’s public hospitals, grapple with debts in the tens of millions of dollars.

Public hospitals are preparing to axe hundreds of workers and cut operations over the coming months to meet shortfalls in their annual budgets.

The measures come as Health Minister Jenny Mikakos denied hospitals faced widespread funding gaps, saying Victoria’s 83 public health services were to receive record funding in 2019-20.

However, senior sources at several of Melbourne’s biggest hospitals have detailed the dramatic cuts they are considering to meet the funding on offer from the Andrews Government.

Health Minister Jenny Mikakos yesterday denied hospitals faced widespread funding gaps.

Faced with increased wage bills and the axing of some funding for specialist programs, some Melbourne health services claim they will be left with shortfalls of between $20 million and $45 million next year.

Country hospitals say they are also being hit hard, with one regional chief executive outlining a drop of more than 15 per cent in the money on offer from the Department of Health.

One Melbourne health service’s cost-cutting measures include a proposal for 100 redundancies, while another has plans to slash more than 50.

A third major Melbourne hospital yesterday confirmed it was also planning for redundancies but is yet to settle on a number.

Other cost-cutting measures being considered by individual hospitals include closing theatres outside business hours to avoid overtime and weekend payments; extending the period hospitals shut down over Christmas and Easter; and cutting agency nurses’ shifts, which would lead to the closure of hospital beds.

Senior sources at several of Melbourne’s biggest hospitals have detailed the dramatic cuts they are considering to meet the funding on offer from the Andrews Government.

The proposals will be presented to the boards of each hospital in coming days and weeks as budgets are finalised.

Ms Mikakos said the Commonwealth had “changed the goalposts” on activity-based funding and ripped $305 million out of Victoria’s hospitals.

MORE NEWS:

PATIENTS AT RISK AS HOSPITALS RUN OUT OF MONEY

DOCTORS REVEAL ‘GRAVE CONCERN FOR PATIENTS’

HOSPITALS COULD CUT PATIENT INTAKE

However, she said the ­record funding from the Andrews Government still ensured hospitals had the full resources needed to provide excellent patient care without the need for job losses and waiting list blowouts.

“The Victorian system is a devolved system with individual boards that make these decisions for themselves.

“But there is absolutely no need for that (redundancies), we are providing our hospitals with record funding — (a) $2.5 billion boost in this state budget alone,” Ms Mikakos said.

[e-mail]