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With an interim state budget to be handed down on Thursday, a peak health body fears Tasmania's public health system won't receive enough support to address ballooning demand. Government policies to rein in spending — such as staff vacancy controls and efficiency measures — are already affecting service delivery, according to the Australian Medical Association (AMA). AMA Tasmania president Dr Michael Lumsden-Steel said staff were "delaying decisions about anything that might cost money". While Dr Lumsden-Steel said this budget was "critical" for health, he had little hope of it having anything other than short-term supports — or it may even introduce cuts — after Treasurer Eric Abetz foreshadowed a focus on reducing spending. Dr Lumsden-Steel said funding problems were not unique to Tasmania's health system. "We can't do it with the resources we've got at the moment." Health budget blows out by $400m Treasury's Preliminary Outcomes Report in August showed a net operating balance of $1.2 billion in the 2024-25 financial year, with net debt reaching $5.04 billion. The main blowouts have been in the Health Department, with a $400 million overspend largely on staff, including locums. Mr Abetz said the report showed improvements "while continuing to face fiscal challenges". "A comprehensive program of works, including with the Efficiency and Productivity Unit, will support our responsible, considered and measured management of every single taxpayer dollar," Mr Abetz said when releasing the report. Treasury's Pre-election Financial Outlook, released in June, warned that Tasmania's debt was headed for $13 billion by 2027-28, and called for "immediate and sustained" corrective action. Labor's health spokesperson, Sarah Lovell, said the government needed to look at the best way to spend the health budget. "It doesn't mean they need to necessarily spend more in health, but they need to spend their money better. We need to be delivering better outcomes," Ms Lovell said. Dr Lumsden-Steel said he wanted to see long-term solutions and a more strategic budget that considered hospitals' demand. "When the health department gets a budget, that budget is not based on what the health department needs, it's purely based on what the government can afford," Dr Lumsden-Steel said. "What we're seeing at the moment is a command and control structure that is running health care. Health minister says more federal funding needed Three months into her role as health minister, Bridget Archer is under pressure to address long ambulance wait times and a growing elective surgery waitlist, which is currently at 9,275 — a 14 per cent increase in the past 12 months. A wage dispute with public sector unions, including the Health and Community Services Union, is also heating up. Ms Archer has called on the federal government to do more, saying Tasmania would be more than $670 million worse off under a proposed public hospital agreement with the states. "The federal government is asking Tasmania, and asking all of the states, to reduce their health demand, but they are not providing us with the resources that we need, or the tools that we need, to reduce the demand in the first place," Ms Archer said. The federal government, which has recently brought in bulk-billing incentives, said it was already providing the state government more than enough.
