Public health workers to fight cuts to public health system in South Australia

Vanguard October 2012 p. 11
Ned K.

On 26 July, the Minister for Health and Ageing John Hill released for a six week consultation period reports by multinational corporation consultants KPMG and Deloitte.

The reports make recommendations to reduce the Health Department’s costs after blowing its budget by over $125 million per year. The recommendations by the consultants follow the familiar pattern of “austerity measures” seen all over the capitalist world, particularly in Europe, measures that try to make the people pay for the economic crises inherent in the system of imperialism (the present day era of capitalism).

In a nutshell the recommendations are –

• Cut the time that patients are in hospital to the absolute minimum
• Reduce the number of public hospital beds by 114
• Reduce the number of full time equivalent jobs by 308
• Outsource more support services such as food preparation and delivery to patients to multinational corporations like Spotless and ISS

The consultant reports treat patients like car parts going along a production line, not as human beings with physical and emotional needs at a time when they are most vulnerable.

How the consultants treat health workers is revealed in their analysis of “labor costs” where they dissect nurses and doctors’ work time in to ‘productive’ and ‘unproductive’ time (a Taylorist approach). The KPMG concludes that nurses annual leave is too big a component of ‘unproductive’ time and laments at the amount of overtime and call back time as contributing to unproductive time and excessive ‘labor cost’. Like the retail industry corporations led by Coles, Woolworths and Westfield, the consultants call for more ‘labor flexibility’ with reductions in overtime rates of pay.

Workers’ response to proposed cuts

Health workers through their unions have denounced the recommendations. The unions representing doctors and nurses quickly picked up that the main ‘cost savings’ in the reports are a direct attack on their members’ pay and conditions, and equally important, an attack on the quality of care of patients.

 Dr David Payne of the Salaried Medical Officers’ Association said on behalf of his members, “Undue pressure to discharge patients before it is safe to do so to meet financial objectives or to deal with a lack of hospital bed capacity will be rejected by salaried doctors... there is insufficient bed capacity to meet demand across a range of disciplines. Therefore the recommendation to cut 114 beds is outrageous”.

Elizabeth Debars from the Australian Midwifery and Nurses Federation said, “These recommendations represent a direct attack on the quality of care in our hospitals...To suggest that $13 million in nursing care cuts could be implemented at the Flinders, Repatriation and Noarlunga hospitals alone, without impacting directly on  care and outcomes, is outrageous.”

On 27 July, the Australian Nurses Federation called for SA Unions and affiliated unions to join together during the six week consultation period to mobilise members and community to send a loud “No Cuts To Health” message to the Premier and his government.

Another test for the ‘left’ ALP government in SA

This will be another test for the new Premier. Will his government listen to the people and reject the consultants recommendations, or follow the well-worn path of other governments of the western capitalist world and go down the ‘austerity measures’ path?

Time will tell, but pressure on the government to be ‘responsible’ in managing the economy for the ruling class is mounting too. The BHP Billiton expansion of Olympic Dam is likely to be delayed for at least two years and even when if it does go ahead, the level of expansion is likely to be reduced by 50% due to the economic crisis of global capitalism.

Within the health system itself, the Wetherill ALP government in SA is locked in to the Public Private Partnership deal for the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. Under this deal, the government will be paying $397 million a year for 30 years, a gross value of $11.7 billion. This money will go to a private capitalist consortium which now includes Pacific Equity Partners, a private equity company that has just taken over the service industry provider Spotless.

Private equity companies are notorious for stripping companies and selling them off bit by bit. How this will play out in the area of public health in SA’s new hospital in 2016 remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure, profit motive will be way ahead of service to the patients and working conditions for the workers.

All this shows that there is much less ‘room to move’ for governments and political parties within capitalism today, who believe in delivering ‘capitalism with a human face’ to the workers and community more generally.

The task is contribute to an organised mass movement led by the working class, out of which will grow a political leadership with answers ‘outside the capitalist square’ that are embraced  by the people as their own.