National hospital policy better than one-off deals: Abbott

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott has not ruled out extending a program to fund more public hospitals, saying that in a sense a national policy is better than providing funding on an ad hoc basis.

But Mr Abbott says the Government is looking at its program for the Mersey Hospital in Tasmania to see whether it will work before extending funding across the board.

Mr Abbott has previously criticised Labor's plans to take over public hospitals if it cannot get more cooperation from the states.

Today Mr Abbott told Channel Nine he agreed that a national policy for hospitals would be preferable to "one-off" deals.

But he said the Labor plan was light on details.

"What is [Opposition Leader Kevin] Rudd's national policy? He can't give us any detail," he said.

"In the end, why do you think federal Labor is going to be any better at running public hospitals than state Labor, which has created this mess?

"A community-controlled public hospital is going to work much better than a hospital that is run by bureaucrats."

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Gus: what a lot of codswallop from Tony... After his federal predecessors and himself have starved the hospital system of funds to stash away a few bucks to pork barrel at their leisure, he's got the gall to say "A community-controlled public hospital is going to work much better than a hospital that is run by bureaucrats."

Crap. Tony this is crap and you know it... Communities without the funds can do no better than bureaucrats without the funds, except communities would have to rely more and more on "charity" to even get by with the basics... slowly relying entirely on "charitable" handouts for the survival of the hospital system... Similarly to many research programs on this or that disease is that are often funded by "charities" rather than proper government grants that would be a lot more effective and better controlled.

Yep... It looks that's the plan by the Rattus government: act as if would "pay the bill", but behind the scene it will pass it on to charitable enterprise rather than be run properly by the nation — stately or federally... Lamington run hospital system soon coming to your area, with a nuclear power station next door — power stations funded by the Rattus government with public moneys given to private enterprise...

When Tony wanted to take over the whole Health system a few years ago, most of the states agreed... But Johnnee could see his cash-box being stripped bared by the real cost of running it thus Tony got smacked on the fingers by Rattus himself... Because the blame would have shifted to the federal government and hospital queues would have doubled in no time... Johnnee knew that... smarter than the average scrooge, isn't he?...

Pharmageddon: the prescription pill epidemic Our increasing reliance on pills has resulted in a 27 per cent rise in prescriptions written by doctors in just five years. It's costing the NHS £10bn a year, £200m of which is wasted on drugs that are never used. Nina Lakhani reports on a dangerous addiction Published: 26 August 2007

Britain is in the grip of a prescription drug-taking epidemic, with unprecedented numbers of medicines being handed out by GPs, costing billions of pounds and stretching already tight NHS resources to breaking point.

Prescription drug use has increased by 27 per cent in the past the five years and the NHS drug bill topped £10bn in 2006. GPs prescribed 918 million medicines last year compared with 721 million five years ago, according to figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday.

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Gus: and I believe things aren't much different downunder... We're still reliant on snake oil... and strangely enough, the average age for humans has regressed in the US — the most pill-popping nation on earth... but its health system stinks... Mind you that's were Rattus wants to take us...