A SACOSS analysis today reveals a dramatic fall in funding to non-hospital health services in South Australia.
Using the most recent figures on total health funding by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, SACOSS has looked at the breakdown of hospital vs non-hospital health spending.
According to these AIHW figures (2017), two-thirds of all SA government health expenditure goes on hospitals. Our analysis shows that non-hospital health expenditure (which includes community and public health, dental services and research) has fallen from 40% of all SA government recurrent health expenditure in 2008-09 to 30% in 2015-16.
SACOSS CEO Ross Womersley says, “Our current health budget heavily prioritises hospital-based health services at the expense of non-hospital services, including programs for health promotion and disease prevention.”
“The evidence shows that community and public health programs are highly effective in cutting rates of obesity and smoking for example, and reversing chronic conditions such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.”
Some sobering facts:
• 78% of SA adults aged 55-64 years are overweight or obese
• Australia spends less than 2% of our health budget on prevention. In contrast, Canada and New Zealand spend around 6%
• 1 in every 2 Australians have at least one prominent chronic condition
• Chronic conditions such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes are largely preventable
• More than 1 in 3 potentially preventable hospitalisations in Australia are linked to chronic disease
• There is also inequality in health, with people in lower socio-economic groups experiencing higher rates of illness and disability.
(also refer to the recent media release: "The Health of South Australians: it’s a sick joke”)
Ross Womersley says, “These figures show we are going the wrong way in terms of our approach to health. Instead of investing in initiatives that promote people staying healthy and preventing disease, more of our money is being sucked into treating people when they get sick.”
SACOSS with other Public Health Consortium partners the Public Health Association of Australia, the Australian Health Promotion Association, the Anti-Poverty Network and the People’s Health Movement are holding an election forum tonight to hear from parties about their health policies.
The Public Health Consortium have come together to jointly call for parties to commit to three priorities this election. They are:
1. Establishing and evaluating two comprehensive primary health care centres which build community capacity,
2. Enabling state-level leadership with a mandate for preventative health and wellbeing by creating a separate role from the Chief Medical Officer, and
3. Establishing a Connected Health for All Program connecting the work of NGOs, local government and the Department of Health to tackle the causes of poor health that often occur outside of the health system.
See also Our Vision for a Health Flourishing South Australian Community