Tasmania needs a serious refocus and injection of preventative health funding if we are to reform our health system.
A critical discussion paper on the future of Tasmania’s preventative health approach was released for community input last month, but you’d be easily forgiven for missing it.
The government’s media release announcing consultation on its 20-Year Preventative Health Strategy went largely unnoticed. I can’t help but wonder what this says about the public discourse surrounding health in our state and our insatiable appetite for more funding that doesn’t address the underlying root cause of the problem.
Right now, as a community we have an opportunity to move beyond the habitual blame game in public health and instead play a pivotal role in shaping a healthier future for ourselves. A future that seeks to place much greater emphasis and resourcing into preventative health, to address the avoidable suffering facing a significant proportion of our population. By doing this, we will ease the pressure currently felt in our overloaded health system by keeping people out of hospital and well for longer.
St Lukes has a vision to make Tasmania the healthiest island on the planet. This will require refocused investment in tools and assets for the community that provide the means for Tasmanians to make lifestyle decisions that are beneficial to their health, allowing many of our current challenges to be avoided.
The invitation by Government to all Tasmanians to express their views on initiatives and innovations that would help create a healthier community has real potential. However, it requires us to shift our focus from a system that funds sickness and is judged on how quickly it reacts – while never fixing the problem – to a proactive system that looks to address root causes to community health challenges, empowering individuals to take control of their own health and wellbeing.
Consider for a moment some statistics from the preventative health discussion paper:
· Nearly one in seven Tasmanians (15 per cent) smoke – the highest in the nation.
· One in five Tasmanians spend eight or more hours sitting per weekday.
· More than one third of Tasmanians’ daily kilojoule intake comes from foods high in sugar, fat and salt.
· Only one in 20 of us (only six per cent) eat enough vegetables.
The government’s vision and community call to action is commendable. But unless this preventative health strategy is properly funded and embraced by the community, it will inevitably end up as just another white paper – all while the health of our community continues to deteriorate.
Our health system shouldn’t demand a budget that is 32 per cent (and growing) of the entire state budget, because it is not addressing the problem. If we can get the balance right and invest now in preventative health measures, we will create a more effective and equitable system for the future.
St Lukes has been a very strong advocate for rebalancing our health dollar spend into preventative health. We’ve acted to significantly increase our investment in innovative health programs to support our members and the wider Tasmanian community in the critical areas of prevention, early detection and intervention, albeit there’s still considerably more to be done.
I urge every Tasmanian to consider the role we can all play in the future health of our state, both individually and collectively, and seize the opportunity to have a say on the government’s 20-Year Preventative Health Strategy discussion paper, as we’re all in this together.
The Tasmanian Government’s 20 Year Preventative Health Strategy and information on how to make a submission can be found here.
Paul Lupo is the CEO of Tasmanian not-for-profit health insurer St Lukes.