Articles

First published: Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The proposed health reform will do little to address the most pressing needs of our most needy patients.

THE federal government’s recent rhetoric has been that hospital funding formulas are of little interest to patients looking for care. Yet the emphasis in the new reform plan is about hospital funding.

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First published: Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Since before the last election we have been promised a root and branch analysis of the health system and a plan to fix public hospitals. We don’t even have a health system. Instead we have multiple poorly connected pieces For our patients there is the public hospital system, the publicly subsidised private hospital system, the GP system, the community care system, the publicly funded private allied health system, the mental health system, the publicly funded private dental system, the public dental system, the Aged Care system, and a myriad of other poorly connected pieces of a nightmare for our patients to negotiate.

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First published: Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The health of patients with cataracts is being forgotten by both major parties in the debate about Medicare rebates for cataract surgery and for joint injections. The Federal Government’s main interest appears to be to save money even though it knows that some eye surgeons and arthritis specialists will not reduce their fees, thus leaving patients to pay more or simply not have the vision saving operation or the joint injections which these highly skilled health professionals can perform.

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First published: Friday, November 21, 2008

Are doctors the cornerstones of primary health care? If they are currently, they shouldn’t be. Patients should be. The fact that we have in this country a health system which uses a funding system for primary care centred around funding providers – not patients, not need – is a sad reflection that patients are no longer the cornerstone of primary care.

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First published: Tuesday, July 3, 2007

It’s tough losing a war of conquest. The historical record confirms that, in all times and places, defeated peoples whose land is seized do badly.

History gets written, and sometimes totally sanitised, by the victors. Despite this, Aboriginal health statistics–for instance a two-decade deficit in life expectancy–provide an objective and persistent reminder that something is very wrong.

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First published: Sunday, May 27, 2007

General practitioners get lots of mail.

At the top of my batch yesterday was a shiny green pamphlet that simply asked “Who’s really at risk of contracting hepatitis B?” It smelt like advertising so I cast it aside to open later.

Next up came a letter from a local dermatologist who wrote that my patient had been prescribed a particular brand-name cream. I couldn’t recall its active ingredient and flung the correspondence onto a check-my-facts pile, while quickly repressing the thought that this mightn’t have been necessary if I saw pharmaceutical company representatives or read drug ads.

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First published: Friday, August 11, 2006

We have seen sufficient evidence in The Age this week that many within and outside the medical profession are concerned about the effects on our patients of the marketing efforts of the pharmaceutical industry. From the industry’s influence on the direction and publication of research, through its support for patient lobby groups and its indirect advertising in the infotainment media, to its influence on opinion leaders and ultimately on the prescribing patterns of doctors at the coalface, this is an issue well recognised by professional colleges and sadly rejected by the largest medical political lobby, the Australian Medical Association.

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First published: Thursday, March 16, 2006

For how much longer can Australians take readily available good health care for granted? Even urban areas are experiencing shortages of doctors and hospital beds. Will it get worse? What are the solutions?

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