Tony Abbott’s plan for hospitals
A Coalition Government would devolve the running of the nation’s public hospitals to the private sector, community groups and charities, Opposition frontbencher, Tony Abbott says.
“We wouldn’t run them with public servants,” he told the Ten Network on 9 August.
Mr Abbott, a health minister in the previous Howard Coalition Government, said it was time to give the public hospital system back to the people.
His vision includes the establishment of local hospital boards with the power to appoint their own chief executive and the ability to retain revenue from privately insured patients.
“It is a dog’s breakfast of divided responsibility,” Mr Abbott said of the present system where the states blamed the Commonwealth for lack of funding.
The Commonwealth, under a Coalition Government, would devolve management of public hospitals “in the same the way it did for the employment services network and nursing homes”.
