Hospitals

Once upon a time, home births were the only option, and mothers and babies frequently died.

Things have changed dramatically since then. Home births are much safer, and much, much rarer. The latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare statistics show in 2009 just 0.3 per cent of women had a planned home birth – a total of 863 births. Two babies died.

But home births are still the source of simmering tension; the powerful Australian Medical Association is dead set against them, a very vocal lobby group is angry at recent changes that make them harder, and parents are left to choose between conflicting views and seemingly conflicting evidence.

Continue reading "Home births are prone to many complications" »

When the Prime Minister was under the gun for her ‘gushing’ speech to the US Congress on Q&A on Monday night, she said that Australians and Americans were very different kinds of people. The former believed in the ‘fair go’, whereas the later were individualistic and distrusted government.

To illustrate her point, she reached into the standard playbook of the Left and pointed to the different attitudes that prevail in each country regarding health care.

According to the PM, when Australians look at the debate that has raged in the US over ‘Obamacare’, they wonder what on earth Americans are going on about. Because here in this country, we know that ‘Medicare works’.

Continue reading "Medicare: Australia’s very sick sacred cow" »

There’s a reason health reform has featured in our national debate for decades. There’s a reason it is contentious, difficult and often tops out surveys as the biggest concern for Australians.

It’s because if we don’t get it right then it hits our family members directly – everyone wants the best care when they’re sick. Queues and waiting times that go for too long. More suffering than is necessary.

Every family knows a situation where the care of a loved one could have been improved if doctors, nurses and health staff had better support, more resources and bureaucracy didn’t get in the way.

Continue reading "For taxpayers and patients, health reform is essential" »

Just how Nicola Roxon took her seat at the head of the Health Ministers’ meeting in Hobart last week beggars belief.

Ms Roxon’s position as Federal Health Minister is now untenable.

Her strident and consistent advocacy for the Rudd health ‘reforms’ leave her now embarrassed, discredited and renders her impotent and therefore unable to remain in the health portfolio. Just as Peter Garrett had to be separated from the disastrous pink batts scandal and other wasteful green energy schemes (he should have been sacked), so too Nicola Roxon must be dispatched from health.

Continue reading "Roxon promises, but she doesn’t deliver" »

There’s an odd kind of acquiescence to broken political promises. It’s considered almost narky to politely point out to politicians that they have in fact broken a promise that helped have them elected.

Following the big sell the Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Health Minister Nicola Roxon are embarking on after the COAG health agreement, its worth remembering what we were actually promised in back in Kevin07 days.

Despite the celebrations that Gillard and Roxon are asking us to partake in, the ‘deal’ it represents is a failure of Rudd, Gillard and Roxon to implement what was supposed to be a revolutionary health agenda. It’s symptomatic of the kind of inertia Labor has encountered across its policy agenda and, consequently, its support base.

Continue reading "Health: Labor’s dead canary in the hospital hall" »

The Federal Government has branded it “historic” and “a major achievement”, but big questions hang over Julia Gillard’s multi-billion dollar hospital reform deal.

Here are the answers to some of the most likely questions:

HOW DOES IT WORK?
The deal turns on two key things from the Commonwealth: money, and national control. More of one, less of the other.

Continue reading "Hospital reform: Your questions answered" »

Tonight, the City of Sydney will squeeze into its glad rags and put on the pyrotechnic razzle dazzle that has become the standard way to see in the New Year.

As always, event organisers have promised this year it’ll be bigger, bolder and with added bang for our $5 million bucks. 

In recent years, they city’s grandiose flair for making stuff explode and decorating the Harbour Bridge has given Sydney a cocky strut.

Continue reading "Sydney sparkles to hide the rot beneath" »

Governments treat their employers (us) with such contempt.

They genuinely think we can’t handle the truth, that they need to control the information flow so our little heads don’t explode, or our little worlds implode.

No - not the Wikileaks saga. The MyHospitals debacle.

Continue reading "MyHospitals, MyChoice?" »

The sudden resignation of Murray-Darling Basin Authority chair, Mike Taylor, was a reminder that with complex national reforms, there’s many a slip between cup and lip.

Two schools of thought emerged. One cast Mr Taylor’s departure as a setback because a strong advocate of a healthy river system had been muzzled. The other held that an enviro-fundamentalist who saw the good as the enemy of the great, had bowed out clearing the way for a workable deal for the river.

Actually both are true.

Continue reading "Julia’s Year of Living Rigorously" »

I’ve upset a lot of people over the years. At first I thought this was due to my unwavering history of frank and fearless journalism but it turns out people just find me rather annoying.

It is for this reason that I find the euthanasia debate a little bit worrying. I’ve seen the way my mother looks at me sometimes.

There are also fiscal considerations. I am already in my mid-thirties and drink and smoke far too much. If I were bumped off now it would likely save the hospital system a great deal of money and - from what my bosses tell me - have no discernible impact on national productivity.

This is not just a fear for myself of course but a fear for all of us who are vulnerable at times.

Continue reading "The problem with euthanasia is living can be harder" »

The Rudd Government believes universal access to top quality health care and medicines is a right for every Australian, regardless of where they live or how much money they have. 

Most Australians feel the same. It’s part of our “fair go” tradition, something that is I believe is one of the greatest things about Australia. However, tradition isn’t going to help our struggling health system.  We know that left unchecked, health costs were set to eclipse entire state budgets by the middle of the century.

That is why the Rudd Government embarked upon the most significant reforms to the health system since the introduction of Medicare.  Only a Labor Government – the founders of Medicare - would make such an undertaking.

Continue reading "The unhealthy opposition to our prescription for reform" »

One of the magnums of Centenary of Federation Shiraz sitting down in the Lodge cellar would be a suitable drop for the Prime Minister to uncork to mark the signing of his health agreement. Therese is stuck in London thanks to the volcano so Kevin Rudd can kick off his work shoes and celebrate this deal - and it’s a big one - in style. In fact he could kick off more than just his shoes and do his Hugh Grant impression in celebration like in this video:

He ought to enjoy the celebrations because when he wakes up he’ll remember the deal he has struck, which makes him responsible for the delivery of healthcare services in Australia.

So when the disgruntled son or daughter of an elderly patient decides to call talkback radio in their city because mum has been on a trolley for six hours in the Emergency department, they’ll be wondering what Kevin Rudd is going to do about it.

Continue reading "Pop the cork on a few, PM, but the work’s only starting" »

The Prime Minister has declared that the States of Australia will not be able to fund the public hospital and health needs of Australia’s aging population in to the future.  The Rudd answer has been presented to us as his promised health reform in the shape of a 60/40 funding split; with the Commonwealth becoming the dominant funder, and local hospital networks providing management of service delivery.

There is actually no additional or new money; the 60% we all clearly know is to be achieved by a Federal grab of 30% of the States GST revenue.  This is a takeover of State revenue.

It has been a skilful exercise in abrogating the responsibility that Federal government (of both parties) has over time failed to maintain its funding of the public hospitals and dropped to an average 35/65 contribution; thus making the States cop the brunt of the costs, and now blaming them for failures. “The blame game” has been played and rightly so. The States have pointed the finger at the federal government’s diminished contribution and now the Feds have stealth fully turned the table on the States.

Continue reading "Rudd’s health care plan is a road to nowhere" »

The most telling part of the Health debate this week was when a journalist questioned Kevin Rudd about the fact that what was desperately needed (and not in his shiny new plan) was more hospital beds.

Rudd responded in classic bureaucrat-speak, asserting that “the funding that we’ve provided already, the 50% increase in the grants to the hospitals of the States, is the equivalent of 5,750 hospital beds”.

That might be so Mr Rudd, but where’s the evidence that even one actual real bed has been created? Patients can’t sleep on an “equivalent bed” that exists only in the accounting world – they actually need the real thing.

Continue reading "Rudd’s Yes Minister plan" »

There was one moment that Tony Abbott couldn’t control himself today. It was when Kevin Rudd went all kumbayah, looking at Abbott and saying “let’s work together” - complete with a hand movement that was a gesture of embrace.

Abbott laughed uproariously, drowning out the PM as he continued talking about co-operation on health. It was a telling moment. Abbott didn’t show up today looking for consensus or solutions. He came, as is his instinct, looking for a fight.

Maybe it was in the hope that the same belligerence and street smarts that served him so well when he was ambushed in Parliament last week would work again today. Bzzt! Wrong. Rudd was in the position of having actual policy to talk about while the pressing issue for Abbott has been his actions as health minister, which the government has been characterising as “ripping a billion dollars out of the system”. Abbott was on the back foot from the start.

Continue reading "Rudd’s gamble pays off" »

There’s over 1500 comments from readers in the widget below where you can replay our live coverage of the health debate between Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott, including the journeys of the worms.

Continue reading "As it happened: the Rudd v Abbott health debate" »

Maybe he’s telling the truth but given his experience in the Queensland bureaucracy, it’s simply impossible to believe Kevin Rudd when he says he “didn’t properly estimate the complexity” of health reform.

A few minutes talking to anyone involved in healthcare delivery is enough to know the sector is hopelessly complex, a spaghetti-bowl of accountability. Everybody’s hands are tied, it’s a black hole for money, it is impossible to please the stakeholders from state governments through doctors’ and nurses’ associations to the voting public, and the line of managers required to sign off on simple things stretches almost as far as the line of patients waiting for treatment at a hospital door.

What Rudd outlined yesterday is in some ways about changing which bank account gets debited for healthcare services. But most people don’t really care about structural reform – they just want to know Aunt Ethel doesn’t have to shuffle around on the bad hip for too long. And when she does, they want someone to blame. Now Rudd is saying you can blame him.

Continue reading "Rudd asks for the 3am phone call about a hospital problem" »

The leaks have started, the little details of the federal government’s plans to rescue the health system are starting to filter out, with stories in newspapers hailing Health’s Shot in the Arm and Rudd to Cut Away Dead Tissue.

But beneath the gushing promises of more beds and more money there are signs that the government is considering changing the way it funds hospitals.

NSW doctors support any measures that untangle the way health is currently delivered. There are too many layers of management, too much complexity in the funding, and not enough focus on patients. So we agree there are problems. But our starting point is that any solutions should be focussed on untangling the current mess.

Continue reading "How bureaucrats could step in and ruin health reforms" »

If you spend time in our public hospitals as a patient or as someone who works there you are acutely aware of all the concerns about the state of the system and the level of care. 

The people who serve in the public hospital sector are generally committed above and beyond all call, and are constantly frustrated if they feel that cannot provide the correct and best care for a patient because of the limitations of staff, equipment, time and capacity.

Many of us have called for hospital boards and now once again the idea has been floated, this time by Tony Abbott. 

Continue reading "Abbott’s plan for hospital boards is one that can work" »

Is it too early to differentiate classic Abbott as Liberal leader from classic Abbott the wrecking ball? Perhaps, but if he does announce soon that a Coalition government would push for a hospital takeover it will be one hell of a great play.

With Abbott and opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton flagging moves to make Coalition policy a referendum to take over state hospitals they have beaten Kevin Rudd and Labor to the punch on what, thus far, has been a dithering display on the issue by Kevin Rudd and Nicola Roxon.

The Government has already broken an election promise on hospitals. It said it would force the states to improve public hospitals or announce a takeover of hospitals, via a referendum at the next election, by mid-2009. It has done neither.

Continue reading "Abbott has beaten Rudd to the punch on health" »

Mostly flying doesn’t bother me, although there was a time when just the thought of a trip to the airport would make me break out in a sweat.

My head would suddenly fill with all the possible bad things that could happen, notwithstanding the fact they rarely do.

On the other hand, I rarely worry about a visit to the doctor, and while I’d rather not see the inside of a hospital ward, I don’t get the chills at the thought of it. Sure I know there’s chance of something going wrong in even the best-run hospital, but how bad can things really be?

Continue reading "Why the hospital will kill you before a plane crash does" »

The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission’s final report is a much needed blueprint for health reform in Australia.

But the recommendations of the report should not be confused with actual commitments and that is the real issue now: what recommendations will the Rudd Government actually commit to before the next election so as to actually have affected some change in the health system in its first term.

Before the 2007 election Rudd promised to takeover state hospitals if there was no improvement in services by state run hospitals by June 2009. This was actually crafted in terms of a “commitment by states to reform” but what people gleamed, and what Rudd was happy for them to take away from the promise, was that if there was not improvement by June this year he would hold a referendum for a full takeover.

Continue reading "Rudd’s health revolution is not a takeover of hospitals" »

With the beginning of the new financial year there are invariably small changes to our lives.

Many of these revolve around money. Things like tax cuts, rate changes and increases in family allowance benefits.

The middle of the year also gives us time for more personal reflection: it’s July and I still haven’t taken the bottles from my April birthday party to the recycling bin – just a random example.

But here is a list of ways that things have changed today and The Punch’s evaluation of whether we’re better off for it.

1. Crappy tax cuts introduced

Kevin Rudd committed to these tax cuts before the last election and now has to go through with them.

The promise was made in the heady days of economic boom time when we enjoyed daily joy rides in limousines with Paris Hilton and wore extinct animals on our heads. Now we’re dressing in possums and the best celebrity we can muster is Kochie giving some sage financial advice: “Here’s one folks, ever thought of knitting your dinner?”

Continue reading "For better or for worse: 10 things that changed today" »

In the heady days of the 2007 election campaign the Australian people were given a promise. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the Health Minister Nicola Roxon said if public hospitals did not get their act together by mid-2009 the Commonwealth would take control of 750 hospitals nation-wide from state governments. With June 2009 approaching, it appears state hospitals aren’t looking much better. A lot of them are looking worse, and this may force to the Government to face up to what was a disingenuous election promise because everybody knows this was never going to happen.

Between babies being miscarried in toilets and doctors being forced to pay for their own supplies, the NSW hospital system only needs some kind of zombie virus to complete the entire set of next week’s episode of 20 to 1: World’s Greatest PR Disasters. In fact the NSW Health Minister John Della Bosca might welcome the zombie plague as the ravenous hordes would be likely to reduce the number of patients on elective surgery waiting lists.

Continue reading "Remember that thing you said about hospitals, PM?" »