Dr Parnis said every hospital across Victoria and Australia was affected by the federal funding cuts and said the system needed to change. 

He said medical professionals were deeply concerned by the changes and said the funding model had failed. 

“We do ask that the federal and state governments review this process to make sure that we don’t have these sorts of cuts which occur after the money has been spent,” he said. 

“There’s no fat in the system to trim back and we’re the ones that have to face the patients and say we can’t do their surgery on time and we can’t find a bed in the emergency ward.”

Australian Nursing Federation Victorian Branch secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said patients were being used as “pawns in a political blame game”. 

Chairman of the Victorian Faculty of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine Dr Simon Judkins said the cuts would flow on to areas such as mental health. 

“Any threat of budget cuts means it will make the delivery of services very difficult,” he said. ??