A Federal Government takeover of ancillary health services remain at the centerpiece of the Rudd Government’s million-dollar shake-up of the health system, but what it will mean for the country’s nurses remains somewhat unclear.

The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission promises to deliver the most significant reforms to Australia’s health and hospital system since the introduction of Medicare, with major structural reforms to include changes to the way hospitals are run and funded.

The Federal Government report, A National Health and Hospitals Network for Australia’s Future, released last year, says the reforms focus on improving public hospital and primary health care services and will drive major improvements in service delivery as the Government builds a new health and hospital system.

‘Reform is necessary if we are to continue to deliver high quality health care. Our current health care system is fragmented, contributes to cost-shifting between different levels of government, involves too much waste and results in long waiting times for patients’, the report says.

It also points out that hospital admission rates are far higher than comparable countries and that the country’s health care system will also have to contend with an ageing and growing population, rapid innovations in technology that drive increased health costs and a growth in the burden of chronic disease, prompting the need for significant reform.

But what the shake-up will mean for the country’s nursing workforce remains unclear, with nurses trying to read between the lines to try and determine whether the policy changes will ultimately spell greater career opportunity; or not.

The report does say that more doctors, nurses and allied health professionals will result, with additional funding to train nursing, allied health and medical supervisors.There is also likely to be opportunities within the GP Super Clinics detailed in the report. The Rudd Government is creating 36 GP Super Clinics across the country to bring together GPs, nurses and allied health professionals in a single convenient location, which it says will particularly benefit Australians with chronic and complex diseases.

But not all believe the hype. One Victorian nurse with nine years’ experience, who declined to be named, said the country’s nursing workforce was entering an unknown time as details of a Federal takeover are drip-fed to the media. “The disappointing thing is that we aren’t being told anything about how all this will affect us; we are reading about it in the media. And often there’s only scant details about how all this would actually affect our careers and employment opportunities,” she says.

But the Australian Nursing Federation has thrown its weight behind the reforms, saying they will make the country’s healthcare system more transparent and accountable. “The move by the Commonwealth Government to become the majority funder of health care will help stop cost shifting and duplication in hospital funding,” Ged Kearney, Federal Secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation says.

“Establishing local health networks should make the health system more responsive and accountable to communities and clinicians. It will make accessing the health system easier and less complicated for patients and hopefully improve services.“Nurses and other health staff have argued for the buck passing and blame shifting in health to stop and we believe this proposal will help to do that,” Kearney says.

Although, it seems nurses need more information. The Victorian nurse believes the lack of information has contributed to the numbers of nurses leaving the workforce, with the uncertainty too much for some of her colleagues to bear. “We all have families to support, and can’t be expected to continue on without being given some level of detail. I’ve had two nursing colleagues move into different careers because they couldn’t stand the uncertainty,” she says.

By Nina Hendy

Copyright NCAH