Hospital

Hospital - An Unhealthy Business, investigates a public hospital's struggle for economic survival. It weaves the story of administration at St. Vincent's hospital in Melbourne and their attempts to bring in a balanced budget, together with the stories of three patients whose care might be jeopardised by the pressure to cut spending and increase patient throughput.

The need to increase throughput and the subsequent pressures on the staff come to a head in winter, with four weeks to go until the end of the financial year.

The four hundred-bed hospital attempts to do the impossible - to treat around nine hundred patients every week.

However the treatment and care of patients is a complex issue and often unpredictable. For instance, 80-year-old Mrs Biggs has been admitted suffering from a stroke and it is uncertain how long it will take for her condition to stabilise. Robyn Watson has an aggressive cancer and the price of her treatment is mounting, costing a great deal more than the hospital receives back from the government. Mick Nash, a patient admitted with chest pain of increasing severity, waits in pre-op while a debate ensues in management to consider rationing the very procedure Mick is about to receive. As management continue to try and cut spending, the treatment of patients like Mrs Biggs, Robyn and Mick is increasingly viewed by the accounting department as not viable but nursing staff, health workers and doctors do not agree.

Staff at St. Vincent's push themselves to the limit to minimise the effects of budget problems on their patients. Debates rage, tension mounts and the budget problem starts to take its toll. Will their efforts be in vain?

The crisis facing St. Vincent's, like public hospitals all over Australia, is that they are being forced to prioritise those services that are the most cost-effective. With this kind of financial philosophy at work, will health care itself become the main casualty?

Director/Writer: Catherine Marciniak
Producer: Tony Wright
Executive Producer: Chris Oliver
Duration: 55 mins
Year of Production: 1996
A Film Australia Production in association with December Films

Reviews

"This is not a tedious documentary about how a shrinking health dollar is allocated, but a story of how bureaucratic decisions limiting care and treatment affect three patients. It is also a moving parable about modern Australia. A powerful and moving documentary about a health system in crisis. Don't miss it."

-- Jeff Babb
News Weekly, 14th June 1997