Key indicators of public hospital performance are deteriorating despite the Federal Government's injection of extra funds into the system, the Australian Medical Association has warned.
The AMA issued yesterday its annual public hospital report card which found that every state and territory was failing to meet targets for access to emergency departments and elective surgery set by the Council of Australian Governments.
But the Federal and ACT governments both accused the lobby group of relying on out-of-date data and failing to acknowledge improvements made in recent years.
AMA federal president Steve Hambleton said that public hospitals did not have the capacity to meet the demands of an ageing population that was experiencing chronic conditions that required acute care.
''It's gradually getting worse and we do need to turn that around. There's significant new funds coming in to the health system, which is going to happen over the next couple of years, and we need to make sure that money makes it to the bedside,'' he said.
Dr Hambleton said an extra 378 public hospital beds had been opened in 2009-10 but this was only about 10 per cent of what was actually required.
The AMA was concerned about ''hidden waiting lists'' for elective surgery. Patients were not added to surgery waiting lists until after they had been assessed by a specialist as requiring an operation.
The AMA wanted more transparency about the wait patients faced to see a specialist after being referred by a GP. The report criticised the ACT's elective surgery performance but noted that Canberra's hospitals were an important health resource for the wider south-east region of NSW.
Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the report card used 16 month-old statistics and did not include funding data issued last week. ''This AMA is so used to criticising that it can't bring itself to acknowledge when good things are being delivered,'' she said.
Ms Roxon said the Federal Government had delivered 433 extra hospital beds and 70,000 additional elective surgery operations.
A spokeswoman for ACT Chief Minister and Health Minister Katy Gallagher said the number of public hospital beds in the territory had increased from 670 in 2001-02 to 926 this year and record levels of elective surgery were being performed. She said all health ministers would like waiting times to see surgeons recorded and reported but this would need to be done in a nationally consistent way.
Federal Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton said Labor had blown billions of dollars on ''bureaucrats'' and patients were suffering as a result. ''[Prime Minister] Julia Gillard said she had historic reforms and all we find out is that patients are waiting longer and longer in hospital queues around the country and people are suffering as a result of Labor's terrible mismanagement of the hospital system across the country.''
The ACT Opposition said the report showed Ms Gallagher had failed to properly manage the local health system.
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