Writer
Ian Webster
Ian W Webster AO is Emeritus Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine of the University of New South Wales. He has worked as a physician in public and regional hospitals in Australia and UK and in NGOs dealing with homelessness, alcohol and drug problems and mental illness.
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IAN WEBSTER. Standing up for Medicare.
Fair access to health care is in the zeitgeist of European countries and Australia. The political sensitivities of this issue were demonstrated in the last election with the angst generated by the Labor Party’s “Mediscare” campaign. Continue reading »
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IAN WEBSTER. Amid chaos, ethics.
Speaking particularly of the treatment people in Manus and Nauru, Professor Ian Webster argues that in this secular and chaotic world, the values and principles of the professional codes of health workers could be used to frame their future contributions to a civil and humane society. Continue reading »
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IAN WEBSTER. Malcolm Turnbull and homelessness – reaching mentally ill people
This week our PM, Malcolm Turnbull, was admonished when he gave $5 to a homeless man in Melbourne. He was sorry if people thought he should not have done this. He said, “I felt sorry for the guy”….”there but for the grace of God go I.” George Orwell wrote after being ‘down and out’ Continue reading »
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IAN WEBSTER. Health care for aged people is increasingly complex.
From his experience in intensive care in one of Australia’s busiest intensive care units at Liverpool Hospital in Southwest Sydney, Professor Ken Hillman describes the failure of specialised, super-specialised, medicine to deal appropriately and humanely with seriously ill aged persons and those whose life has run its course. (Ageing and end-of-life issues, posted 9/7/2016 Continue reading »
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IAN WEBSTER. Bulk-billing rates are not what they seem.
A categorical mistake: Is bulk-billing a reliable indicator of access to GPs? Where I work in regional NSW, patients have difficulty finding a GP who is prepared to bulk-bill them for their medical care. The phone call to the practice receptionist ends, so often, with, “The doctor’s books are full”. At the same time Continue reading »
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Ian Webster. Is community medicine dead?
John Menadue said in the NSW Health Council Report of 2000, “Services should be based where patients and consumers live. The autonomy and dignity of each patient is best serviced by providing services wherever possible outside hospital. So a shift to community multi-disciplinary health teams is a major issue still ahead of us.” He returned Continue reading »
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Ian Webster. Drugs and the problem of pain
At the centre of the drug problem is the problem of psychic and physical pain People with mental illness turn to alcohol and drugs to lessen their distress. When adolescents and young adults use a substance to ameliorate their social anxieties a pattern of lifelong alcohol and drug misuse can be set in train. People Continue reading »
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Ian Webster. Alcohol and Sport.
The facts about alcohol should stop politicians in their tracks. But they are unmoved. A quarter to a third of the work of a general hospital is alcohol-related. On Australia Day one in seven ED attendances were caused by alcohol; in some EDs it was one in three. The Senior Australian of the Year, Gordian Continue reading »
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Ian Webster. On thin “ICE”.
“If we wish to annihilate the junk pyramid, we must start at the bottom of the pyramid: the addict in the street, and stop tilting quixotically for the higher-ups so-called, all of whom are immediately replaceable. The addict in the street who must have junk to live is the one irreplaceable factor in the junk Continue reading »
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Ian Webster. Alcohol-drenched cricket.
Michael Thorn is right; the ICC Cricket World Cup was an alcohol-drenched event (SMH Tuesday, 31st March 2015). Cricketers were once models of sportsmanship. There was even altruism and some became statesmen. Recall, “That’s simply not cricket.” No longer, as the game is subverted by money and alcohol. As I write, the ABC is broadcasting Continue reading »
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Ian Webster. Suicide prevention.
September 10th was World Suicide Prevention Day – Suicide Prevention – One World Connected and from the 5th to the 12th October Mental Health Week ran in Australia. The week’s highlight was the ABC’s “Mental as” which ran through the whole week. Over three nights “Changing Minds – the inside story” on ABC TV involved Continue reading »
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Ian Webster. Cutting waste and costs in health
Waste in health care conjures up several pictures. One picture is of community nurses, psychologists and Aboriginal health workers in the community centre I visit anchored to their computer screens, endlessly it seems, trying to fulfil the demands of data entry. They are obviously frustrated by the lack of relevance this has for solving the Continue reading »
