South Australian budget: doctors earning $1m a year on repair hit-list

Highly-paid public doctors will come under scrutiny as SA tries to repair its haemorrhaging health budget.

The SA budget papers showed an overspend in health in 2017-18 of $255m after rising from $87m the previous year.

Haemorrhaging expenditure in South Australia’s health and hospital services network will be stemmed with an $800 million bandage over the next five years as the Marshall government takes aim at highly paid public doctors.

This financial year’s blowout for the Central Adelaide Local Health Network was likely to equal last year’s $255m deficit, according to interim advice from turnaround specialists Korda Mentha, brought in by the new government earlier this year.

“The government had no option but to take corrective action. There’s a need for clear cultural change and financial change in CAHLN,’’ Treasurer Rob Lucas said. “They’re haemorrhaging taxpayers’ money within a culture that is not too overly concerned.”

The government brought in Treasury officers, Korda Mentha and former Economic Development Board chairman Raymond Spencer to provide advice on “how we might hope to correct” the overspending.

More than $13m will be spent over four years to set up a new local health network board structure across three metropolitan and six regional areas.

The budget papers showed an overspend in health in 2017-18 of $255m after rising from $87m the previous year. In 2018-19 it was expected to also be about $250m or slightly higher.

The budget maintained $528m for a new women’s and children’s hospital to be physically connected to the new $2.4 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital. Mr Lucas will seek to increase fees for salaried medical officers who operate private practices within public hospitals.

Taxpayers currently receive 9 per cent of fees paid through rights of private practice, from people treated as private patients in a public hospital.

This compared with fees charged at between 20 to 68 per cent in other states.

“The government will initiate a review as a priority and seek a more reasonable contribution to the costs of use of public health facilities to generate this private income,” Mr Lucas said.

SA has 290 salaried medical officers who earn more than $500,000 a year and two doctors on more than $1m a year, the highest paid in the country.

New spending for health included $45m over four years to reduce elective surgery waiting lists, $30.7m over three years for a meningococcal B immunisation program and major upgrades of the Queen Elizabeth ($277m) and Modbury ($92m) hospitals.

Country hospitals will receive $140m over 10 years to pay for a backlog of capital works.