Fed: Rudd says PM picking fight over one hospital

AAP General News (Australia)
08-06-2007
Fed: Rudd says PM picking fight over one hospital

CANBERRA, Aug 6 AAP - Prime Minister John Howard had picked a fight with one state
government over one hospital in one marginal electorate rather than seek to fix fundamental
problems with the health system, Labor said today.

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said what people in the Tasmanian electorates of Braddon
and Bass wanted to know was what would happen to other hospitals in their region and whether
there was a total response to problems of the health system.

Mr Rudd said the Commonwealth had withdrawn funds from its overall investment in public
hospitals.

"(It) has been totally disinterested when it comes to fixing functional duplication
and overlap between the Commonwealth and the states, and the mismatch at present between
aged care beds on the one hand and acute hospital beds on the other," he told ABC radio.

"It stares at you in the face as an area demanding practical reform.

"And after 11 long years in office, Mr Howard says `not interested, I want a one-off
fight with a state government over one hospital in one marginal seat'."

Prime Minister John Howard last week launched an unprecedented commonwealth intervention
in a state health system, proposing to directly fund the public hospital at Devonport,
north-western Tasmania.

That follows state plans to downgrade the hospital which services some 70,000 people
across that region. This will cost the Commonwealth some $45 million a year and has proved
extremely popular with local people.

The hospital is located in the marginal Liberal-held seat of Braddon.

Mr Rudd said he could not say whether Labor would support the Devonport hospital bailout
without much more information.

"As soon as I have before me a comprehensive piece of paper which explains what the
proposed management model is for this hospital for the future and how it is to be constructed,
organised and delivered on the ground and integrated with the surrounding health care
infrastructure of northern Tasmania.

"I am not intending to respond to yet another Howard government press release when
there is no detail attached."

AAP mb/jm/de

KEYWORD: STATES HOSPITALS RUDD

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