HEALTH Minister Michael Ferguson has defended this year’s health budget, saying the money will allow the government to achieve much-needed health reforms to achieve its goal to have the healthiest population in Australia by 2025.
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The government last week boasted about an additional $50 million investment in frontline health services which included additional money for mental and preventative health strategies and paramedic pay increases.
The Tasmanian Industrial Commission in 2014 had awarded a 14.1 per cent pay rise over three years which was appealed by the government in the Supreme Court.
It agreed last year to increase wages last year at a cost to the department of $2.5 million in 2016-17 and $3 million in 2017-18.
Mr Ferguson defended the government’s broadened definition of “frontline health services” in this year’s budget and accusations from unions and health bodies that the preventative health spend was not enough.
He said the money allocated within the budget will be the biggest investment yet in preventative health.
“It’s not just our $2.6 million new investment in preventative health strategies,” he said.
“We’ve allocated specifically $2 million through the education portfolio to work from a preventative point of view for our young people.
“We’ll have further detail next month when the government releases its Healthy Tasmania five-year strategic plan where we will be focussing on obesity and smoking.”
The budget allocates $29.5 million towards One Health system reforms which Tasmanian Health Service chief executive David Alcorn said was enough for the department to start implementing recommendations for the issues paper released in 2014.
“We’ve got a clear agenda, the clinical staff and clinical support staff are in no doubt that the white paper is being implemented,” he said.
“We don’t have endless dollars – no system has endless dollars – but the money that we’ve got meets our responsibility to use wisely.”