Why hospital still need a donation from outsider?

Is there to bad for goverment to supply all the equipment by subsidiries. Why they can spent on war but in human life they quite not too supportive?? Try read this articles

The Royal Children's Hospital's request for major medical equipment funding has been knocked back by the State Government for the second consecutive year, forcing the hospital to again rely on the Good Friday Appeal.

The hospital missed out on government funds this year to buy a $4.5 million magnetic resonance imaging machine; last year, it did not get the $1.57 million CT scanner it asked for.

In both cases, hospital authorities decided the replacement high-tech machinery was so badly needed that it allocated the Good Friday Appeal funds to buy it.

In publicity for the appeal, which this year raised a record sum of just above $10 million, the hospital said the waiting list for scans on its sole MRI machine could be up to four months.

Opposition health spokesman David Davis said the hospital "has again been forced to compensate for inadequate government support".

He said: "The Bracks Government continues to play the pea and thimble trick whereby some resources are made available but other resources are held back, forcing the hospital to dip into precious appeal funds."

He said the auditor-general had been critical of the State Government for not putting in place a proper system for replacing capital equipment in hospitals. "They have seen that by not funding the essential equipment, the community will step into the breach."

Mr Davis said he was also concerned about a drop of more than $60 million in the net value of the Women and Children's Health Network's facilities and assets over the past four years.

The network's annual report showed that the worth of the network, which includes the Royal Women's and Royal Children's, dropped from $253.4 million to $192.2 million from 1999 to 2003. "The reduced financial position reflects a long-term starvation of the hospitals," Mr Davis said.

The network placed an MRI scanner at the top of its priorities for funding under the $17 million set aside for Victoria's targeted capital items list this year.

Department of Human Services spokesman Graeme Walker said the Government funded the network's second preference, a $349,000 peri-operative service suite and equipment at the Royal Women's, and the network's fifth priority, a $700,000 dual-head gamma camera. On an individual hospital basis, these represented the Royal Women's first priority and the RCH's second priority.

Mr Walker said there would have been equity issues involved in any decision to give one hospital almost 30 per cent of the total funds, which the MRI would have consumed.

He said once the Government had told the network it could not fund the MRI, the hospital had been upfront in informing the public that the Good Friday Appeal funds would go to buy the MRI.

Minister for Health Bronwyn Pike last week announced an extra $18 million a year in recurrent funding for the RCH. This followed $6 million emergency funding for cancer facilities and $2 million to begin redevelopment planning, plus an extra $8 million one-off grant to cover costs. A spokesman for Ms Pike denied the Government had taken into account the appeal funding.