Rejoice, Reimagine – an opportunity to refocus health care

By Tim Johnston

Hundreds of delegates and speakers are gathering in Sydney for Catholic Health Australia’s annual conference Rejoice, Reimagine, which starts on Tuesday 26 August.

This year’s conference comes at a crucial time for Australia’s health and aged care sector. The industry is being squeezed between rising costs of delivering care and falling income; a national health care policy that needs refocussing; and many of those at the margins of society – those who need health care the most – are falling between the cracks.

Health

“Our not-for-profit hospitals are needed more than ever, however funding from insurers is failing to keep up with the soaring cost of providing healthcare which is putting then under incredible pressure,” says Dr Katharine Bassett, CHA’s Director of Health Policy.

Some hospitals have already broken, with more than 70 private hospital services across the sector closing in the last five years. Most members of CHA are charities that forgo profits so they can pass the benefits on to their patients to ensure no one is left behind.

The government’s response to the private hospital viability issues is very encouraging. There is a review underway that is looking to analyse the problem, which will create a platform for funding and structural reform.

Over the next couple of days, CHA will be bringing together some of the industry’s hospital leaders, policy makers and analysts to continue these important conversations and look at how we can work together to best deliver our mission to provide services to those who need it most.

Aged Care

Aged care services are at a tipping point. At a time when we need to both upgrade existing services and raise wages to attract and retain quality staff, most aged care facilities in Australia are operating at a loss and many are at risk of closure.

The Aged Care Taskforce called for a more sustainable, fair, and innovative aged care system, and we await the government’s response.

There has been some good news. Government has funded a pay rise of between 23 and 27 per cent for many of those working on the frontlines of aged care, which should go some way to offset the report’s forecast of a shortfall of 40,000 aged care nurses by the end of next year. The introduction of a new Aged Care Act that underscores a fresh funding model is imminent, and CHA has been actively advocating for long-term solutions to make the sector more sustainable. We need aged care reform to be a bipartisan issue the whole community takes responsibility for.

Mission

Underpinning this week’s conference, we will focus on our specific mission as Catholic health and aged care providers, particularly when it comes to ensuring that our ethics and values remain at the core of health policy.

At a time when we are juggling the very real pressures of costs, political pressures, and the role of technology it is sometimes easy for individuals and organisations to lose sight of the essentially human aspect of what we do.

We can argue that home health care is cheaper and has better outcomes, but overlook the fact that patients prefer it; we can treat the medical needs of ageing patients, but overlook their loneliness; we can pursue the potential of technology in general and Artificial Intelligence in particular, but forget that technology is just a means to the end of better outcomes for individual people.

Our faith gives us a unique perspective and empowers us to ensure that people are always at the heart of the health care debate.

We look forward to welcoming people from every part of the health care industry for lively and inclusive discussions over the next couple of days.

For more information on our program, and late registrations, please visit the Rejoice, Reimagine conference site.