Australia spent almost $48 billion on the health system’s response to COVID-19, a new government report has revealed.
The federal government spent an estimated $35.1 billion, while state and territory governments together spent an estimated $11.9 billion from 2019 to 2022, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report, which has been released today.
The unexpected pandemic only led to Australia spending two per cent more on health from 2020 to 2022 than was predicted before the global health emergency emerged, AIHW spokesperson Geoff Callagan said.
”Health spending spiked less sharply in Australia than in many other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries during the first three years of the pandemic,” Callagan said.
The two per cent of additional spending Australia spent on COVID-19 meant it had the seventh lowest additional health spending out of 36 OECD countries, the report says.
Australia’s governments spent $27.9 billion on primary care, including $6.1 billion on the vaccine rollout, and $10.5 billion on public hospitals.
Meanwhile, individual Australians spent an estimated $878 million on COVID-19-related services and items, including:
- About $597 million on rapid antigen tests (RATs)
- About $224 million on personal protective equipment and respirators
- About $56 million on sanitiser
- About $1.3 prescription medications for COVID-19 treatmen
- About $100,000 on out-of-pocket spending on general practitioner services related to COVID-19
The government report further states Australia had the fifth lowest ‘excess mortality rate’ compared to 30 other countries during the pandemic.
‘Excess mortality rate’ compares the number of deaths recorded for a period against the expected number of deaths over the same period.
Australia’s total excess mortality from 2020 to 2022 was four per cent.
