THE latest capital works report  from ACT Treasury shows Canberra Health Services and ACT Health continue to underspend their budget.

However, spending for building the light rail to Woden exceeded the $45 million budgeted by Major Projects Canberra, says Liberal health spokesperson Leanne Castley.

“It’s clear the Government is more focused on expediting its light rail project to Woden than providing vital equipment and services the ACT’s health system desperately needs,” Ms Castley said.

“The ACT health system needs dollars spent by this government rather than simply budgeted.”

For projects more than $10 million in value, halfway through the 2022/23 financial year, CHS and ACT Health together had only spent 42 per cent of available funds. CHS had spent around $17 million despite having $50 million available for major projects.

Ms Castley said CHS had only spent $887,000 out of almost $7 million budgeted on a new clinical equipment and services at  Canberra Hospital.

“This is almost as much as the $800,000 CHS is spending on its rebranding exercise,” she said.

“We know that health expenditure has to increase each year, but when it is not spent by the directorates then we are left with a shortage of beds, clinical spaces, and infrastructure.

“This year we have seen that our Emergency Department wait times are the worst in the country, more than four out of five Canberrans are overdue for their outpatient appointments and staff turnover is increasing year on year.

“The government has also failed to increase health expenditure in line with inflation, and this has resulted in real cuts to the health budget which has caused service delivery to stagnate as demand increases.”