The Health of health 2016 report claimed the state government diverted an extra $423 million received in GST funding to support the state’s health system this year.

The report, authored by independent health policy analyst Martyn Goddard, said the money would not be spent on health, but distributed toward consolidated revenue to pursue surplus.

But Health Minister Michael Ferguson disputed Mr Goddard’s claims, and said Mr Goddard was “wrong in asserting that GST funding is tied to health”.

“[The funding] is not tied to specific areas,” Mr Ferguson said.

“According to the latest Commonwealth Grants Commission data, the independent agency which actually calculates GST distribution, Tasmania is spending more on health per capita than other states and territories,” he said. 

Mr Goddard’s report claimed “the chances of a Tasmanian patient receiving the care he or she needs are now lower than they have ever been”. The report, which focused on health in the first two years of the Hodgman Government, stated the public health system required 200 more beds, including 82 for acute inpatients, “to be able to deliver inpatient care of a national-average level”. 

The state government did not respond when asked whether new beds were needed and whether additional beds would be opened. 

Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation state secretary Neroli Ellis said the state government was taking GST money away from the “public hospitals which so desperately need it”. 

“The diversion of this money has been going on for over a decade, but it has now reached crisis point,” Mrs Ellis said. 

“Nurses and doctors simply cannot continue to work harder and harder ... to prop up a system which is deliberately drained of money,” she said. 

The report said that despite some reforms to unify the state’s health system and the instigation of a clinical redesign, the state’s position at the bottom of the national ladder had “substantially worsened” during the first two years of the Hodgman Government. 

Mr Ferguson said the Hodgman Government had made a “record investment” in health, allocating $6.4 billion over the next four years in the last budget.