Team set up to perform 'radical surgery' on the Australian health system

Feb 25 2008

A commission set up by the Federal government to tackle problems in Australia's health system is already being criticised.

According to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission will help perform "radical surgery" on the country's ailing health system, fulfilling one of his election promises to develop a blueprint to fix the nation's health care system.

The commission which will deliver it's finding by the middle of next year, will be chaired by paediatrician Dr. Christine Bennett who is the chief medical officer for private health insurer MBF, and in the past was the head of Australia's largest teaching hospital.

The commission will include ten medical experts including former AMA chief Mukesh Haikerwal, former West Australian Premier Geoff Gallop and former Victorian state Liberal health minister Rob Knowles.

Also onboard will be academics Ron Penny and Justin Beilby, consultants Sharon Willcox and Mary Ann O'Loughlin, health economist Stephen Duckett, who is a former secretary of the federal Health Department and nurse Sabina Knight, who is a senior lecturer at the Centre for Remote Health.

The commission will produce a "blueprint for tackling future challenges" in the health system and will focus on the rapidly increasing burden of chronic disease, ageing population, rising health costs and inefficiencies in the system.

Mr Rudd says the health system needed "radical surgery" so it could cope with the challenges of the 21st century and says 'tinkering with the system' is pointless.

However opposition health spokesman Joe Hockey has criticised the government for overlooking patients' groups who had missed out on a seat at the commission's table.

Mr Hockey says if the commission is to be more than an academic exercise, it needs to hear from doctors and nurses on the "front line" and have the power to protect witnesses and compel others to appear.

The composition of the commission has however been applauded by the dean of the Australian National University's College of Medicine and Health Science, Professor Nicholas Glasgow, who says he is "very impressed" with the appointments and believes the commission has the "right focus".

Dr. Bennett says the commission is an independent body set up to do a job, and they have had every indication from both the Prime Minister and the Health Minister, they are very serious about the process.