Chris Hayes MP, Member for Werriwa, wants residents to know what the Rudd Government’s National Health and Hospitals Network will mean for local hospitals.

“The question is: do people want a better health and hospital system?” Mr Hayes said.

“The National Health and Hospitals Network will create a single network of national hospital services instead of the eight separate systems which don’t talk to each other. This is a national network which is funded nationally but run locally.”

Under the National Health and Hospitals Network, the Commonwealth would be the predominant funding agent with local experts making decisions and setting local health and hospital priorities.

Mr Hayes said: “The Local Hospital Network will be run by doctors, nurses and experts with a thorough understanding of local health needs who will make the critical decisions about how to lift hospital services in their community.”

“Local hospitals will become more efficient and operate with less waste. That will free up resources to deliver more services with more available beds,” Mr Hayes said.

Mr Hayes said “No hospital system and no health system is ever going to be perfect but we can, as a nation, do better and I know that the doctors and nurses in our local area are saying to me is that they want us to provide funding certainty into the future so that we can get on with the job of delivering better health and better hospital services to this community”.

 “As the Prime Minister said over the weekend, any Premier would be kidding themselves to think that local people are 100 per cent satisfied with how the health and hospital system is at present. We have heard the concerns of people in respect to the current arrangements of the public health system. The National Health and Hospitals Network is designed to make significant change: better funding; local decision making; better overall health outcomes for the local community.”

“I recognize that the Australian people want us to get on with the job of reforming and funding the health system for the future, and we, the Australian Government, are determined to do so” said Mr Hayes.