Qld health budget: Townsville Hospital elevators out of action

Queensland’s $29bn health budget is in such a financially dire state, broken-down elevators are not able to be repaired at a major hospital, a top public servant has revealed.

Townsville University Hospital

Queensland Health is in such a dire financial state that broken elevators can’t be replaced, let alone 2200 new hospital beds delivered, the state’s top health bureaucrat has revealed in a sobering warning to the state government.

Department of Health director-general David Rosengren, in a shock statement to a parliamentary committee, said the $29bn health budget has been stretched so thin, he is unable to approve a contract to replace broken-down elevators at Townsville University Hospital.

It comes ahead of Treasurer David Janetzki’s first budget in June, which Mr Rosengren says will need to address “substantial structural deficiencies” in health funding allocation.

Dr Rosengren said the department was now actively managing hospital infrastructure maintenance based on risk, unable to fund repairs or replacements from the overdrawn budget.

“Right now in Townsville Hospital, the lifts in their main building are well beyond their replacement time cycle,” he said.

“They are undergoing continuous repairs as a result of breaking down and they are now at the stage where we are struggling to find parts to replace because of technology advancement.

“Our sustaining capital budget is well overdrawn, extensively … and the ability for us to sign off on a contract to replace the lifts when there’s no budget allocation and no funding source, that presents a challenge for us.”

According to the Health Financial Audit report released in January, health sector spending reached $2.1bn in the 2023-24 financial year — 30 per cent above the budget target.

Queensland Health director-general Dr David Rosengren

Budget overruns across individual health services were between 6 and 13 per cent, largely due to staffing and contractor costs to meet demand and a rise in the costs of clinical supplies, medicines and pathology services, alongside a 40 per cent rise in overdue hospital maintenance.

Several unfunded commitments are now at risk of not being delivered, Mr Rosengren says, including the 2200 additional hospital beds, increasing ratios of nurse and midwives in maternity units, patient outflow initiatives and other funding for hospital and health services around general delivery.

“Extensive commitments that have been made without very clear funding sources,” Dr Rosengren said.

“We have an ambitious capital program to address substantial deficits in our fixed bed capacity of our hospitals across the state and our ability to do that in the current market with the financial pressures continues to be a challenge.

“We will try desperately not to withdraw from the delivery of services.”

Health Minister Tim Nicholls is yet to release the Sangster report detailing which of the 15 hospital expansion projects will go ahead before 2028 as planned and which would face delays or scope changes.

Treasurer David Janetzki

Mr Nicholls said: “The Auditor-General’s report laid bare Labor’s failures in financial performance and sustainability, asset maintenance and managing the demand for health services.

“We will deliver these hospitals faster than Labor ever could.

“The Crisafulli Government will save the Capacity Expansion Program to deliver the hospital beds needed for Queenslanders and continue to downward trend in ambulance ramping.”

He last week assured that all 2200 beds would be delivered, though not within the next three years.

“In the month before the election, Labor announced another $1.25bn worth of expenditure without providing that money, easy to announce, hard to pay for,” he said.

“We remain committed to delivering those beds.”

Originally published as Qld health budget: Townsville Hospital elevators out of action