{"id":425053,"date":"2026-01-20T08:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T08:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/425053\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T08:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T08:17:09","slug":"queensland-health-services-report-financial-black-hole-of-almost-1-billion-as-population-booms-and-ages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/425053\/","title":{"rendered":"Queensland health services report financial black hole of almost $1 billion as population booms and ages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queensland’s public health services have reported a combined financial black hole of almost one billion dollars, massively up on last year and worse than ever previously reported, according to a report tabled in state parliament today.<\/p>\n

The Queensland Audit Office’s 2025 health report said the combined deficit of the health department and 16 hospital and health services (HHSs) in 2024-2025 was $960.6 million.<\/p>\n

The year before, in 2023-2024, the deficit was only a fraction of that amount at $14.1 million.<\/p>\n

“This is a significant deterioration in the operating result compared to prior financial years, including the period when hospitals were experiencing the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report said.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Population growth and an ageing society are placing “additional pressures” on Queensland’s public health system, the report found. (ABC News: Lucas Hill)<\/p>\n

The independent audit office found population growth and an ageing society placed “additional pressures” on the public health system, which provided an 11.7 per cent increase in services during the reporting period.<\/p>\n

“The financial deficit reflects additional expenditure on employee costs, supplies and services, and asset maintenance and construction,” the report said.<\/p>\n

“The number of staff employed by the department and HHSs increased by 5.6 per cent this year.”<\/p>\n

Review announced into Gold Coast mental health service<\/a><\/p>\n

The review comes after the suicides of two young people in the past five years who received treatment at the service in Robina.<\/p>\n

The report, prepared by the state’s Auditor-General Rachel Vagg, noted Queensland Treasury had provided $800 million to the health department to “address cash flow challenges”.<\/p>\n

Costs expected to rise<\/p>\n

In a blow for taxpayers, the report said costs were “expected to continue increasing in coming years” on the back of projected increases in the number of Queenslanders aged 65 and older to more than 1.3 million by 2036.<\/p>\n

The 65-page report highlighted an almost 30 per cent blowout in the deferred cost of maintaining $19 billion dollars’ worth of health infrastructure and said delayed maintenance is “impacting on the delivery of some health services”.<\/p>\n

“This includes delaying patient treatment or requiring patients to be diverted to other locations for treatment,” the report said.<\/p>\n

As of June 30, 2025, the total cost of reported maintenance across all hospital and health services was $2.6 billion \u2014 an increase of $587 million from 2024.<\/p>\n

The report also highlighted several shocking examples of “hospital and health service assets that have failed due to delayed maintenance”.<\/p>\n

\"Dialysis<\/p>\n

One unnamed Queensland hospital has been unable to provide dialysis services for six months due to water purification outages and plumbing issues. (ABC News: Pat Rocca)<\/p>\n

These included water purification outages and plumbing issues at an unnamed hospital affecting the ability to supply clean water to renal and pathology services.<\/p>\n

“This resulted in the hospital being unable to provide dialysis services, requiring patients to travel to other hospitals to receive care,” the report said.<\/p>\n

“This issue has been ongoing for six months and remains unresolved.”<\/p>\n

The auditor-general noted capital maintenance had historically been underfunded.<\/p>\n

She said the annual base funding for capital maintenance was set in 2010 and remained largely unchanged despite a 284 per cent growth in the Queensland Health asset base.<\/p>\n

“In the 2025-26 budget, $671.9 million has been allocated compared to $215 million last year, to help address these needs and balance the shortfall,” her report said.<\/p>\n

Ms Vagg, the state’s first female auditor-general, said Queensland Health’s 2024-25 financial statements reported outstanding payroll overpayments of $85.1 million, up from $67.6 million last year.<\/p>\n

That’s an increase of $17.5 million, or more than 25 per cent.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The total cost of reported maintenance across Queensland’s hospital and health services was $2.6bn as of June 30, 2025. (ABC News: Lucas Hill)<\/p>\n

The department’s payroll system was previously programmed to auto-recover payroll overpayments.<\/p>\n

But Ms Vagg said Queensland Health had stopped its automated recovery of payroll overpayments during 2022-23 to ensure compliance with the Industrial Relations Act.<\/p>\n

“That Act allows employers to recover overpayments related to absences from work, but other types of overpayments require an employee’s consent to recover,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The ceasing of automated recovery of overpayments, and the resulting need to obtain employee consent to enter repayment plans, has contributed to the growth in the total outstanding balance.”<\/p>\n

The report outlined the failure of public hospital emergency departments to meet the four-hour target to treat and discharge patients, while acknowledging similar problems in other states and territories.<\/p>\n

\"Dr<\/p>\n

Queensland Health director-general David Rosengren said financial responsibility is a “key focus”. (ABC News: Mark Leonardi)<\/p>\n

In an extensive response to the report, Queensland Health director-general David Rosengren said the department “recognises the challenge for financial sustainability which remains a key focus of all leadership teams and staff”.<\/p>\n

“The challenges of increased health services demand, increased health service provider numbers and associated costs and managing procurement to counter inflationary pressure are key areas for Queensland Health,” Dr Rosengren said.<\/p>\n

The audit office recommended the state’s 16 hospital and health services each develop a plan for managing conflicts of interest for board members who are employed as clinicians.<\/p>\n

This follows a recent amendment of the Hospital and Health Boards Act requiring at least one member of each HHS board to be a clinician employed or engaged by that service.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Health minister Tim Nicholls has pointed the finger at the previous Labor government. (ABC News: ABC News)<\/p>\n

Health Minister Tim Nicholls said in a statement the former Labor government left Queensland\u2019s health infrastructure pipeline “on life support”.<\/p>\n

He said the previous government\u2019s program was “plagued by poor planning, missing critical services, major delays and $7 billion in cost blowouts”.<\/p>\n

“Our fully-funded Hospital Rescue Plan is delivering new and expanded hospitals, 2,600 new beds and health services when Queenslanders need them most to help heal Labor\u2019s Health Crisis,\u201d Mr Nicholls said.<\/p>\n

Labor\u2019s assistant shadow health minister Joe Kelly said the LNP was “running Queensland Health into the ground”.<\/p>\n

“Tim Nicholls delayed hospital builds for an entire year, blowing out the budget and putting new hospitals in competition with Olympic venues,” Mr Kelly said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queensland’s public health services have reported a combined financial black hole of almost one billion dollars, massively up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,51595,63,1480,95001,137,500,11426,4082,19900,50029,1836,94,701,8207,992],"class_list":["post-425053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-audit","tag-australia","tag-budget","tag-deficit","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-hhs","tag-hospital","tag-hospitals","tag-minister","tag-public-health","tag-qld","tag-queensland","tag-report","tag-tim-nicholls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}