Writer
John Dwyer
Professor John Dwyer AO, is an Immunologist, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at UNSW and for many years heavily involved in efforts to improve the delivery of healthcare in Australia. He was the founder of the Australian Healthcare Reform Alliance.
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JOHN DWYER. Understanding the public health imperatives required to minimise infections with the Corona virus. (Part One).
Providing communities with accurate, timely and logical information about the control measures required to minimise the harm associated with infectious diseases is essential to avoid both complacency and panic. Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. American’s desperate thirst for affordable health care might just ensure they don’t get it!
In this Presidential election year, poll after poll report that American’s number one concern is affordable health care. Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER.The Opioid crisis should focus attention on the inadequacy of Primary Care in Australia.
John Menadue’s insightful essay on urgently needed reforms to health care in Australia ( P&I Feb 7) correctly emphasised that a “priority area for implementation and funding should be primary care with the rollout of multi-disciplinary primary health care clinics across Australia. Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. The lack of truth in Medicine and Science.
Opioid addiction is pervasive and growing rapidly. Medicine and Science are threatened by the phenomenon. Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. What a mess! Insurance for health care, both public and private, is increasingly dysfunctional with sensible and equitable solutions held hostage by “vested interests”. PART TWO
At least 50% of the money private health insurers pay out annually to those insured is absorbed by just 5% off their customers. Most of these patients have chronic medical problems and have multiple admissions per year .While private hospitals need bottoms on beds to be profitable, public hospitals and private insurers are desperately in Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. What a mess! Insurance for health care, both public and private, is increasingly dysfunctional with sensible and equitable solutions held hostage by “vested interests”. PART ONE
We Australians have for decades now made it clear that we want a health care system that delivers quality care in a timely manner with availability based on need not personal financial wellbeing. Increasingly it is obvious to all that the system should better fund programs to prevent illness not just treat it.These are the Continue reading »
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The barbaric nature of the human condition
It was a right hook in the third round that sent the 26 year old boxer to the canvass. The crowd cheered with excitement; after all, this is what they had hoped to see. On the referee’s count of “five” the man struggled to his feet and was directed to the ring side doctor. That Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER Australia’s opioid epidemic
The Opioid epidemic that has so devastated America is now well established in Australia. Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. Another hard to believe example of the weakness of our regulators in protecting consumers from healthcare fraud.
When I was much younger I often dipped into Ripley’s “Believe it or not” for a laugh, amazement and even enlightenment. I had a look at their website recently as I prepared to tell you a story that would fit well into their library and found that “Ripley’s” is alive and well, daily producing their Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER -Failed regulation in health.
When I was much younger I often dipped into Ripley’s “Believe it or not” for a laugh, amazement and even enlightenment. I had a look at their website recently as I prepared to tell you a story that would fit well into their library and found that “Ripley’s” is alive and well, daily producing their Continue reading »
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The crisis in Private Health Insurance arrangements in Australia is a symptom of our public health failures.
“Australia’s private health insurance (PHI) industry fears it is in a death spiral, and politicians need to rethink whether or to what extent taxpayers should continue to subsidise the industry” the Grattan Institute tells us as they call for a review of the purpose of PHI in Australia. The Grattan report emphasises what is already Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER An open letter to Minister Greg Hunt
The majority of Labor’s plans for our health system were greeted with enthusiasm herein and elsewhere as they addressed major current inadequacies that diminish the equity and cost effectiveness of the health care available to Australians. Labor did seek and act upon advise re health reform priorities provided by health professionals and informed consumers. Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER The “Canterbury Model” in health
Australia’s health care system needs restructuring to see it meet the contemporary and future needs of its citizens. A consensus view has emerged which argues that a long term (perhaps ten year ) plan is required for the full implementation of the desired changes. The status quo is unacceptable as the system is not Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. Politics and anti-science. Hunt’s pathetic “Flip-Flop” on the use of Taxpayer’s dollars to pay for “Alternative” Medicine
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NH&MRC) is Australia’s pre-eminent provider of advice on science and health to government and the community. Concerned that taxpayer’s dollars might be wasted subsidising private health insurance payments for a range of “Alternative”clinical services, the federal government asked the NH&MRC in 2015 whether there was credible scientific evidence Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER – Will the health initiatives announced last week significantly and sustainably improve health care for Australians?
Given that polls constantly have Australians saying that healthcare is a top issue in every election, expectations are high that our politicians will describe a commitment to those structural reforms so badly needed to improve equity of access to excellent health care that is cost effective. While Labor had made a number of important Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER Chiropractic manipulation of infant’s spine
Recently social media and then the mainstream media exploded with outrage following the publication of a photo showing a Melbourne chiropractor “treating” a newborn baby by suspending the child in midair, holding its foot high as it thrashed around in protest. Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. Health Reform’s “Holy Grail”;Medicare must fund the “team Medicine” approach to Primary Care.
Surely my disgust at the Coalition’s decision to spend more than a billion dollars re-opening the Christmas Island detention centre to make sure that none of those nasty murderers, rapists and paedophiles ever get to real Australia for any medical care, is widely shared. There is so much real health that could be purchased Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. Labor unveils the health care reform initiatives to be pursued if elected.
Shadow health minister, Catherine King, in an address to the National Press Club, has detailed the major health initiatives Labor would embrace if elected in May. Her plans indicate that she has heard and accepted many of the priorities for reform proposed by would be health reformists. The status quo is unacceptable. Most encouraging was Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. Health care reforms and the Federal election: A guide for voters
Our health care system provides, at least for metropolitan based Australians, world class management of medical emergencies. A stent in a coronary artery in the middle of the night can save a heart in danger and our dedicated stroke units routinely dissolve blood vessel blockages that could have proved fatal or caused major permanent disabilities. Continue reading »
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The extraordinary determination of China to have the world embrace its traditional medicine. (Part 3 of 3.)
The artemisia annua plant has been used for centuries in China to fight malaria. In 2011 a Chinese scientist, Tu Youyou, discovered how to extract the ingredient responsible for the anti-malarial effect (now called Artemisinin) and her reward was a Nobel Prize. Where there is good anecdotal evidence that something in a herb or plant can help Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. The extraordinary determination of China to have the world embrace its traditional medicine. (Part 2 of 3)
Remarkably and unfortunately politics, not clinical effectiveness, is powering the global penetration of Traditional Chinese Medicine into health care systems. The term “Traditional Chinese Medicine” (TCM) was dreamt up by Chairman Mao Zedong in a cynical response to the Communist Party’s inability to provide evidence-based health care for the then 500 million Chinese. Mao knew Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. The extraordinary determination of China to have the world embrace its Traditional Medicine. (Part one of three)
The child was six years old. His parents were struggling to manage his Diabetes. He had Type 1 diabetes, the most serious form of the disease caused by his own immune system destroying his pancreas. As a result he could no longer produce required amounts of Insulin to control his blood sugar levels. Regular injections Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. How are we going to water the farm now that copious life sustaining rain is but a memory?
The change in the world’s climate is currently on full display with equatorial deluges, hurricanes and typhoons causing destruction and misery while the the rest of the world burns and experiences record temperatures further North than ever recorded before. As a 78 year old Australian I am well aware of the frequency with which our Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. Health care reform – Part 2.
Without acceptance of a ten year plan and the creation of an instrument to implement that plan we will not be able to engineer the evidence based structural reforms to our health care system that will improve quality, equity and cost effectiveness. Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. Health care reform – Part 1.
Without acceptance of a ten year plan and the creation of an instrument to implement that plan, we will not be able to engineer the evidence-based structural reforms to our health care system that will improve quality, equity and cost effectiveness. Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. “Health Care Homes”, set up to fail and doing so spectacularly.
Touted by Minister Hunt as the biggest health care reform initiative since the introduction of Medicare, the “Health Care Home” model for the better management of patients with two or more chronic diseases is floundering, beset with predictable organisational and resource inadequacies. As is so often (too often) the case with health policy initiatives, a Continue reading »
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Profit trumping professionalism! All too often the case in Australian pharmacies
On May 3, Health Minister Greg Hunt spoke at a conference organised by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia. This is the pharmacy owners association (all pharmacists) which in 2011, notoriously, entered into a deal with the vitamin and supplement provider, Blackmores, to have 5000 pharmacies try and sell a Blackmores’ product to clients picking up Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. Poor oral health in Australia; a costly chronic problem getting worse and which current strategies have no chance of resolving.
Australia’s health “system”, such as it is has two “Achilles’ Heels”. The left one is our lack of emphasis on the prevention of disease while the right one concerns our incompetence in integrating health services in a patient-focused way. Both were on vivid display recently with the release of a new report by the “Australia’s Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. The curse of political mediocrity; The informed, bold, courageous policies that Australia needs in health are nowhere to be seen. (Part 3 of 3)
This “fair go mate” country of ours is wealthy but in reality ever less egalitarian. Increasing Inequity is palpable and most notable in the problems we have with housing, education and health. Health outcomes for Individuals are increasingly dependent on personal financial wellbeing. Australians are spending about 30 billion dollars a year to supplement the Continue reading »
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The curse of political mediocrity; the informed, bold, courageous policies that Australia needs in health are nowhere to be seen (Part 1 of 3).
This “fair go mate” country of ours is wealthy but in reality ever less egalitarian. Increasing Inequity is palpable and most notable in the problems we have with housing, education and health. Health outcomes for Individuals are increasingly dependent on personal financial wellbeing. Australians are spending about 30 billion dollars a year to supplement the Continue reading »
