Community
5 December, 2024
Rising premiums costly for TMHS, MP warns
LOWAN MP Emma Kealy is among members of the opposition raising concerns increased WorkCover premiums are hurting the bottom-line of health services across the state.
Ms Kealy said Victoria’s health crisis continues as figures show Terang and Mortlake Health Service (TMHS) WorkCover premiums increased 90 per cent last financial year, revealed in annual health service reports tabled in Victorian Parliament last month.
TMHS paid $63,000 in premiums in 2022-23, but this figure jumped to $120,000 last year.
Part of the increase in costs was employee expenses rising from $10.42 million in 2023 to $11.12 million in 2024.
Medical indemnity insurance also increased from $137,000 in 2023 to $208,000 in 2024.
The reports showed hospitals across the state paid more than $250 million in WorkCover premiums in 2023-24, 51 per cent more than the year before.
As Western District Newspapers reported last month, TMHS remains in a strong financial position in part due to an increase in funding from the Victorian Government, rising from $9.442 million in 2023 to $10.530 million in 2024.
However, rising costs and uncertainty surrounding the level of government funding health services will receive in to the future has continued to cast doubt over not only the potential for health services to flourish, but over the viability of local health services in their current form to continue.
The increase in WorkCover premiums, which the Victorian Government set at an average premium rate for 2023-2024 of 1.8 per cent, a rise from the previous 1.27 per cent, is among the rising costs adding increased fiscal pressure on government services.
The Victorian Government cited a necessity for increasing WorkCover premiums to ensure the long-term liabilities can be funded amid efforts to modernise the system.
But Ms Kealy said the revelation from the Allan Labor Government that, under its watch, Victoria’s workers compensation scheme was “fundamentally broken”.
She said Labor’s mismanagement of WorkCover was “forcing” health services to spend less on core services.
“Hospitals have been under enormous pressure with increased costs, the threat of amalgamations and budget cuts,” Ms Kealy said.
“Now they are facing yet another blow to their finances under Labor, all of which will have a worsening impact on patient care.”
“Our local health care staff do an incredible job under extremely difficult circumstances, and deserve far better than a government who consistently forces them to do more with less.
“Labor has failed to properly manage and invest in Victoria’s public health system, instead preferencing projects in Melbourne that will provide no benefit to the people of rural and regional Victoria.
“Labor cannot manage money and Victorians are paying the price.”