Public hospital admissions rising fast
More and more Australians are being admitted to public hospitals over private hospitals.
There were 11 million admissions to hospitals in 2016-17, of these 6.6 million were in public hospitals and 4.4 million in private hospitals, according to a new report.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says the figures show the number of people being admitted to public hospitals is rising faster than those admitted to private hospitals.
The release of the report on Thursday comes as Australians continue to dump private health insurance as the cost of premiums rise.
According to the AIHW report, admissions rose by 4.3 per cent on average each year for public hospitals and 3.6 per cent for private hospitals between 2012-13 and 2016-17.
These were greater than the average growth in population of 1.6 per cent over the same period, said AIHW spokesperson Jenny Hargreaves.
The majority of admissions to public hospitals - 83 per cent, or 5.5 million - were for public patients.
Of these, however, about 1 in 7 were patients who used private health insurance to fund all or part of their admission.
Public hospitals accounted for the majority of emergency admissions (92 per cent), medical admissions (77 per cent) and childbirth admissions (76 per cent) in 2016-17.
But it appears private patients are still choosing to have surgery in a private hospital.
"By contrast, 59 per cent of admissions for surgery were in private hospitals,' Ms Hargreaves said.
This proportion grew if the surgery was elective, with 67 per cent of elective surgery admissions taking place in a private hospital.
