Australian Hospital Patients Suffer from Socialized Medicine

Australian Hospital Patients Suffer from Socialized Medicine

Hospital Crisis - Australian ABC 13 November 2009 15:30

Brian Morton Australia Broadcasting Company Correspondent

"The public debate about waiting lists for elective surgery has become
a discussion about numbers - rather than a discussion about people.

The way we discuss hospital waiting lists has sterilised the debate
and anaesthetised us to the human reality of what those lists
represent.

Elective surgery is not about just botox, nose jobs or breast
implants. It’s about amputations, angioplasty and skin grafts. It’s
about hip replacements, mastectomies, cataract surgery and gall
bladder removals.

Patients waiting for these operations are described as being in
Category 1, 2 or 3. We measure their waiting times in weeks. Put in
these numeric terms, a Category 3 patient waiting over 52 weeks for
surgery, sounds harmless enough. But waiting to have a gall bladder
removed, for example, is a painful business. It’s not only painful for
the patient, it causes stress and anxiety for the patient’s family,
and may keep the patient out of the workforce for an extended period
of time.

This is the human cost of public hospital waiting lists, and why
waiting lists matter. It’s why we should be concerned about the
failure of our hospitals to manage the growth in demand for surgery.

In common usage, ‘elective’ implies that someone has a choice. But in
a medical sense, elective surgery is defined as surgery that, in the
opinion of a specialist, is necessary and admission for which can be
delayed for at least 24 hours. Too many patients are waiting too long
to have these operations.

Consider the record of New South Wales hospitals in dealing with cases
of semi-urgent (Category 2) surgery. This represents over one third
people on hospital waiting lists.

The Australian Medical Association’s Public Hospital Report Card 2009,
released last week, reported that 75 per cent of patients are being
treated within the recommended timeframe. Or put another way, one in
four patients are not being treated within the recommended three
months.

The official waiting list figures are also misleading, as they do not
recognise the time people spend waiting to get into outpatient clinics
in the first place. In this sense, there is another hidden waiting
list - just to get onto the official waiting list.

Despite promises from both Australian Federal and State Governments,
the waiting list problem is not going away.

At the beginning of 2008 the Federal Minister for Health announced a
‘blitz’ on public hospital waiting lists, involving a funding
injection of $150 million to conduct 25,000 procedures nationally.

Nevertheless, waiting lists have remained long and waiting times have
not significantly improved. The AMA has argued that at least 90 per
cent of patients should be seen within the recommended time frames for
surgery. Even this target means that we still have patients waiting
for an entire year for the surgery they need.

Achieving it will require a concerted effort from State and Federal
Government to tackle underlying structural problems in the hospital
system - not just one-off ‘blitzes’.

The Public Hospital Report Card 2009 found that bed occupancy rates in
Sydney, for example, hover around 90 per cent, and often get up to
dangerous levels of 95 per cent or higher. Having access to more beds
is important - but these beds must also be adequately staffed.

Last year the AMA conducted a national survey of junior doctors in
public hospitals. Fifty four per cent of the doctors surveyed found
their workload to be excessive, and 41 per cent believed this workload
compromised patient safety.

There is only so far we can stretch the rubber band. Investment is
desperately needed in staff recruitment, retention and training. The
bad news is that demand for surgery in public hospitals is going to
keep growing. Our ageing population will result in more hospital
admissions, and a more complex case mix for hospital professionals to
deal with.

That means the improvements that have been made in hospital
productivity over the past decade, with patients spending less time in
hospital before being discharged, will be harder to maintain.

No one denies that reforming the health system is complex, but changes
need to be made now - not delayed by the endless cycle of policy
reviews and inquiries. The human costs of public hospital waiting
lists cannot be ignored any longer."

134 Comments from Australians follow the article he

http://preview.tinyurl.com/PJs0217

PeaBrain wrote:

Australian Hospital Patients Suffer from Socialized Medicine
http://preview.tinyurl.com/PJs0217

Australian hospital patients suffer from privatised, not socialised,
medicine. The Australian hospital system is similar to the U.S. one.
If you can afford private hospital insurance you will be treated
promptly in a private hospital. If you can't afford private insurance
you will be subject to the unacceptable constraints of the public
system because no one with any influence lacks private insurance. The
Australian medical and pharmaceutical systems, which could
legitimately be regarded as socialised, are never the subject of
similar adverse press reports.

I might be tempted to dismiss your post because you are a foreigner
and can't be expected to understand the Australian health system but
this ignorance extends to Australians. Instead of advocating a
socialised hospital system that provides universal coverage they
accept the propaganda of the health insurance industry and, like you,
seem to be unwilling to eliminate these parasites.