Hospitals and police will be left bearing the brunt of a $5 million cut to inner-city homelessness services and the safety of vulnerable people put at risk, health experts say.

The Australian Medical Association NSW fears the decision, combined with cuts to federal homelessness funding and mooted GP co-payments, poses a threat to the health of the homeless community.

St Vincent’s Hospital in the inner city is already seeing patients evicted from refuges that are closing under a new government policy, called ”Going Home, Staying Home”, which is shifting resources from the city to the suburbs.

Tenders due to be awarded soon will move funding from services that cater for women with specific needs, such as mental illness, to generalist providers.

”These people are not going to disappear or go. They have become reliant on the services in the inner city,” he said.

”If the services in the city are reduced, it will only fall on the health system … or the police.

”It’s actually going to be more expensive to the state government overall.”

St Vincent’s Hospital treats hundreds of homeless people every year in the hospital and outreach services, with 50 per cent of the patients in their non-medicated withdrawal unit experiencing homelessness.

The director of the Mental Health Service at the hospital, Peter McGeorge, said treating people with complicated health issues and homelessness required a specialist team.

While the hospital was reaching out to regional NGOs to offer support under the new system, he was concerned that the loss of the city’s specialist women’s services such as B Miles, which caters to homeless women with mental illness, would affect patients.

”It would be a terrible idea if in order to save money we were going to just make generic services,” Dr McGeorge said.

AMA NSW vice-president Saxon Smith was concerned about the combination of shifting resources from the city and the mooted GP co-payment.

”Often people who are homeless have mental health issues, and that falls through the cracks,” he said.

”Just because you put a [medical] practice somewhere, it doesn’t mean they are going to turn up to it, and that’s why you have these outreach programs, to try to make sure you do interact with them and get the best outcomes you can”.

Family and Community Services Minister Gabrielle Upton has said that the new, larger providers will still be expected to deliver tailored services.

”The 2011 census identified a 27 per cent increase in the overall number of homeless people since 2006,” she said.

”We cannot do what we have done for the last 30 years if we expect the next 30 to be different.”

This article first appeared on ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ on 10 June 2014.