Tim Woodruff

Tim Woodruff is a specialist physician working in private practice. He is Vice-President of the Doctors Reform Society and Chair of the Australian Health Care Reform Alliance.

 

Tim's recent articles

Health and the election: Band-aids when surgery is needed

Health and the election: Band-aids when surgery is needed

Health policies are out and there is little difference between the two major parties. The policies definitely help patients afford to see GPs and get medication.

Health and Human Security: a sense of control over one’s life

Health and Human Security: a sense of control over one’s life

It is time to think more broadly about security than the narrow military concept about which there is endless debate.

Putting the mouth back into Medicare

Putting the mouth back into Medicare

How would it be to walk into a general practice with a toothache and be triaged to see the oral health therapist, who assesses and then develops an oral health care plan? They are then qualified to provide dental treatment but may also involve a GP or dentist across the corridor for further assessment. It is time to dream this could become a reality if Labor is prepared to embrace the mouth, gently.

Universal Basic Income, Rental Affordability Crisis

I've been a keen advocate of UBI for years (https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/tim-woodruff-basic-income-guarantee-this-is-a-health-issue/) and am delighted to see it being pursued. Clearly the tax system requires adjusting to implement this policy. The other area that is of concern is the possibility that in the current rental and housing affordability crisis, the only people who will benefit will be the homeless, who will be able to enter rentals at the bottom of the market, and the landlords, who will increase rent because they can.

Aged care funding: On the road to entrenched inequity

Aged care funding: On the road to entrenched inequity

UK Health Minister Aneurin Bevan introduced the National Health Service (NHS) pointing out that “Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community.”

Prescription co-payments: Time to stop the silent killer

Prescription co-payments: Time to stop the silent killer

Prescription co-payments are imposed by the Federal Government for subsidised drugs. Australians pay $1.6 billion a year in co-payments. Why do we continue to have financial barriers to accessing these drugs?

Can we build on Whitlam's legacy and place patient need at the heart of Medicare?

Can we build on Whitlam's legacy and place patient need at the heart of Medicare?

Our health services should be first and foremost about patients, and a revamped Medicare should be focused primarily on patient need, not on the antiquated view of some providers as to how a 21st century health system should be.

Letter to new Health Minister Mark Butler

Letter to new Health Minister Mark Butler

Congratulations on your impressive achievement. It is now time for policy implementation. I hope you have a huge agenda. Supporting Medicare is not enough. Our health needs have changed and we know much more about what is needed to meet those needs than we did when Medicare was introduced. We have to embrace the changes and reform Medicare.

Our health system: The dream and the reality

Our health system: The dream and the reality

How would it be to have a health system which delivered timely high quality care to everyone, with such a system emphasising that prevention of illness and promotion of health at every level to improve health, as well as potentially increasing productivity? How would it be to have a society which recognised that poor health is frequently a result of structural inequalities in that society?

Opportunity Lost: spark of a healthier nation was quickly snuffed out

Ten months ago I wrote about the opportunities the pandemic provided to tackle the many problems of our health system. I have watched with dismay as those opportunities have been frittered away, first by the Federal Government and more recently by the federal Labor Party.

The powerless suffer and the powerful carry on amid Covid-19

Covid-19 presents us with an opportunity. A more equal society, more resilient to the challenges ahead, or a society ruled by power imbalances, struggling to cope with both natural and man-made disasters.

TIM WOODRUFF. Health Services or a Health System?: We Have a Choice

How do we keep our population healthy? From a patient perspective we dont have a health system. From a providers perspective we dont have a health system.

TIM WOODRUFF. COVID 19: Lessons for our Health ?System

Australia doesnt have a health system. We have a maze of poorly connected health services which barely manage to work together to provide health care of extremely variable quality depending on many competing variables such as income, geography, ethnicity, culture, and type of illness.

Private Health Insurance: Where To Now?

Much has been written about the problems of the Private Health Insurance (PHI) industry. Desperate attempts to make an inherently inefficient product less inefficient have been proposed. Such suggestions do nothing for the inherent unfairness of taxpayer subsidised PHI. But something needs to be done and it should address both the inefficiencies and the inequities.

TIM WOODRUFF. Health Policy: Where to Now?

The recentelection result was a major disappointment for those interested in improving the health of the nation. The re-election of the Coalition promises an ongoing increase in support for private health insurance as the Government continues its long-term agenda of two tiering the health system.

TIM WOODRUFF. Health Policy and Successful Politics.

Health policy reform is difficult. There are an abundance of powerful stakeholders whose number one priority is definitely not optimum health care for all Australians. But most Australians do share the view that our health care system (which isnt really a system) needs improving. There are two broad aspects to optimising health. The first is equitable timely access to high quality care. The second is addressing all those factors outside the health system which affect health. These are the social determinants of health and of productivity. Healthy people are more productive. The key social determinant is income inequality, both absolute...

TIM WOODRUFF. Cancer is horrible; so is death from any cause.

The Opposition Leader has announced the biggest investment in Medicare for a generation, $2.3 billion to be spent eliminating the co-payments faced by those with cancer who see specialists, need diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy. It is also guaranteeing all new drugs approved by the Pharmaceutical Advisory Committee (PBAC) will be listed for subsidy. The latter means prescription costs will be a maximum of about $6 or $40 a month for pensioners and health care card holders or non card holders respectively.Cancer is scary. It is debilitating. It is life changing. It is often fatal. Furthermore, as Mr Shorten correctly pointed...

TIM WOODRUFF. Out of Pocket Costs: Who is missing out on health care?

One of my patients has epilepsy. She sees a neurologist for that and he charges $200 out of pocket per visit. He has controlled her epilepsy very well. She is on a disability support pension. She believes she will get better care seeing him privately despite the fact that he also works in the public system. Out of pocket (OOP) costs have been in the news particularly since 4 Corners exposed huge costs impacting significant financial hardship on many sick Australians. As a result of a Ministerial Committee report the Health Minister has proposed tackling the issue with a...

TIM WOODRUFF. Health Reform From Labor: Does the Policy Match the Vision?

ALP health spokesperson Catherine King addressed the National Press Club this week to expound Labors vision of health care changes if it wins office. Perhaps the highlight of the address was a restatement of Labors vision of a truly universal health care system in which every Australian has affordable access to the high-quality health care they need whenever they need it. But will such a vision be wholeheartedly pursued under a Labor Government?

TIM WOODRUFF. Whats wrong with Labors Private Healthcare Discussion Paper? (Croakey)

In 2017 I referred a patient for relatively simple orthopaedic surgery on her wrist to enable her to get back to working in a caf. She had been advised that she was a category 3 patient and should be operated on within 365 days. During this period she couldnt do her usual part-time work which she could juggle around child care commitments. Furthermore, Centrelink required her to apply for jobs she couldnt do. It took 6 months to even get on the waiting list. She finally had the surgery 15 months after I referred her. Another of my patients...

TIM WOODRUFF. My Health Record: Major Concerns Continue Despite Backdown By Health Minister.

The Federal Government has finally realised that there are major problems with its implementation of the My Health Record.

TIM WOODRUFF. Health, Class Warfare, and Social Justice

Class warfare has been with us forever. It could be called a fight for social justice. Indeed, it would seem to be integral to the stepwise progress we have made over centuries as we have moved to a society which outlaws overt slavery, has a moderately progressive tax system, provides a wide range of public services, and has a variety of safety nets, all combining in the aim to be a civilised society.

TIM WOODRUFF. A budget for inequality, worsening health outcomes and decreased productivity.

As a financially comfortable part-time medical specialist, I will be in the group receiving the highest tax cut immediately, whilst my daughters working full time at much lower income will receive about one third of that. Its of even more concern that, in seven years time, the major beneficiaries of the government plan will be those on incomes like that of politicians, receiving eight times more in reduced tax compared to low income earners.

TIM WOODRUFF Who Cares About My Toothless Patients?

The inequities in the status of oral health in Australia are appalling because of a lack of political will and a resistance to recognising that all Australians deserve to receive adequate dental care. This resistance is rooted in the elitism of those in power, the belief that if one cant earn an adequate income, then second rate access to dental care is ones lot.

TIM WOODRUFF. A proposal for health-promoting welfare reform: could it help six million Australians?

On an almost weekly basis now Im asked as a medical specialist to write a letter to help a patient be accepted by Centrelink as unable to work. My letter and that of the patients general practitioner are then assessed by staff with limited or no medical training.

TIM WOODRUFF. Basic income guarantee: this is a health issue!

In 1970, conservative republican US President Richard Nixon introduced a health bill into the American Congress. It passed but was defeated in the Senate. He didnt realise it was a health bill, nor did many of his fellow politicians. It was called the Family Assistance Plan, a guaranteed income for families with children, not adequate to bring the income up to the poverty line, but substantially more than was previously on offer.

TIM WOODRUFF. How universal healthcare is being undermined.

The Medicare rebate freeze is one strategy in that agenda. Reducing the Federal Governments share of public hospital funding is another. Reducing the support for public dental care is another. Promoting private health insurance in primary health care is another.

<