Rudd health plan just might work

Australian Medical Association’s Capricornia representative Kim Bulwinkel.

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MORE money for our region is what Rockhampton surgeon Dr Kim Bulwinkel believes will result from the announcement of a major health services shake-up last week.

The announcement by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last Wednesday for a new National Health and Hospital Network included plans to introduce activity-based funding for all public hospitals.

According to Dr Bulwinkel, who is the Australian Medical Association’s representative for Capricornia, this means we should get more money coming our way than we had in the past.

“CQ has been shortchanged based on the population it services,” Dr Bulwinkel said.

But it is the announcement of public hospitals to be run by local hospital networks under the guidance of health and financial professionals, rather than central bureaucracies, that Dr Bulwinkel is cautiously optimistic about.

Management coming from the coalface of the hospital system is what he believes will make the biggest difference to the way the health service operates.

“There are one too many levels of bureaucracy at the moment, and that is the state level.”

And while full details of the whole proposal are yet to be released Dr Bulwinkel believes the whole proposal is a change that is needed.

“Major structural change has to happen and this is in the right direction.

“The concept and direction is all very much heading where it should go, we have just got to wait for the details.”