John Menadue
Publisher and Editor
Callum Foote
Associate Editor
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Category Archives: Health
Despite more than 30 major inquiries, governments still haven’t fixed aged care. Why are the lobbyists getting away with it? (The Conversation Oct 21, 2020)
The government funds the sector and provides a relatively “light-touch” oversight, while the providers attend to the day-to-day running of the facilities. However, there is concern this alignment has meant successive governments are not as involved as they should be … Continue reading
Reform of the waterfront, with its dogs and security guards, was minor compared to what’s needed for health sector
Medicare funds the established system of health care delivery, a system that has not seen major changes since Medicare was established 56 years ago. It needs serious reform and particularly in the way the health workforce is structured. The pandemic … Continue reading
Posted in Health, Politics
3 Comments
The lack of integration in Australia’s health workforce. There are unconnected silos everywhere.
We urgently needed healthcare reforms :better workforce planning: more equitable workforce distribution,more efficient workforce utilisation,improved workforce productivity and financing reforms to sustain these changes. We call for the restoration of an independent health workforce agency to drive this essential work.
The Victorian lockdown is not just about health and lives!
Recently we have had Peter Singer, WHO envoys and Chris Uhlmann seemingly critical of the Covid-19 lockdown in Victoria. However, have they failed to recognise the significance of Victoria not being a country but one of eight states and territories?
Misinformation about Covid-19. Don’t listen to Donald Trump or Alan Jones.
Here is the big so important question. As we prepare to ease some restrictions, will we, in contradistinction to many communities in other countries, embrace the long-term behaviours that must be normalised to allow us to live as safely and … Continue reading
Posted in Health, Politics, Top 5
13 Comments
No shortage of options to pay for rights-based care for the elderly with a disability. Part 2
A rights-based system for aged care to support those who are unable to participate fully in society will not be cheap. To bring us into line with the standards adopted by high performing countries with similar living standards will likely … Continue reading
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Gillard’s discrimination against people with a disability aged over 65 must be put right – Part 1
It is a truth universally acknowledged – our aged care system is in a tragic mess. It has become a badly regulated, provider-centric system focused more on limiting Commonwealth budget exposure than supporting the dignity and independence of older Australians.
The aged care Royal Commission’s Covid-19 report is superficial, misleading and unhelpful
The report by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety on the impact of Covid-19 is superficial and adds little to what is already being done to prevent and manage Covid in aged care. The Commission’s conclusion regarding … Continue reading
The National Disability Insurance Scheme: a consumer’s experience
Much has been made of the failings of the NDIS, but as a reluctant and apprehensive consumer, I have been more than pleasantly surprised.
Posted in Health
3 Comments
Residential aged care funding rules are unfair and inefficient
The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has highlighted the tragic weakness of residential aged care throughout Australia. Hundreds of older Australians have died prematurely during the COVID pandemic. For their sake, and ours, this tragedy must prove … Continue reading
LobbyLand. The politics of fossil fuels – the pits!
Fossil fuel lobbying is a cancer inflicting death, illness and misery on Australian society. How does it operate, what are its impacts and how can society allow this disabling condition to continue without treatment?
Aged care providers have Coalition wrapped around their little fingers
Locking out visitors has made it difficult for staff to meet the daily care needs of aged care residents. So said the royal commissioners. What an indictment on aged care providers. They receive billions a year in funding, yet they … Continue reading
Posted in Health, Politics, Public Policy
6 Comments
Social prescribing links workers
Social prescribing acknowledges that the provision of holistic, patient-centred healthcare must move beyond a medical model and consider the wider social determinants of health. Link workers can provide personalised support to help patients identify and achieve health and wellness goals … Continue reading
Posted in Health
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First Nations people, their health, and this coronavirus
The results of the efforts to suppress the potential damage to Indigenous Australians from the pandemic should be used as an example of how Indigenous people can be more meaningfully involved in their own health programs.
Posted in Health, Indigenous affairs
1 Comment
Tackling the mental health crisis in the time of Covid 19; prescribing the same remedy over and over again?
The Productivity Commission’s inquiry into mental health is recommending the same policies which have been advocated for the better part of 30 years. There is nothing to suggest that continuing to pursue them will produce the improvements that the Commonwealth government … Continue reading
Posted in Drug Reform, Health
1 Comment
Out-of-pocket medical financial abuse
Charging unjustifiable and unreasonable fees leading to very high out-of-pocket expenses for specialist medical care is an abuse of power and should be called financial abuse. It should also be deemed a form of professional misconduct.
Posted in Health
5 Comments
Aged care has become a property play – perhaps even for some church groups?
Whenever governments outsource or subsidize a community service, it is amazing how quickly and cleverly the private sector finds a way to milk it.
Home based and community health care
Home based care and community health teams require a diversity of funding models. Post COVID ,it is most unlikely that community health care will return to its pre-COVID state.
Australian aged care death rate among highest in the world. Aged care Insite. August 12 2020
The aged care royal commission has heard evidence that the government had no COVID-19 plan for the aged care sector, leading to one of the highest aged care death rates in the world.
Posted in Health
2 Comments
What happens when we treat aged care residents as “consumers” (Inside Story Sep 14, 2020)
Decades of misguided policy sowed the seeds of a human rights disaster.
Posted in Health, Human Rights
1 Comment
Cuban and American healthcare (CounterPunch Sep 3, 2020)
Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate and longer life expectancy than the US while spending less than 10% per person annually on healthcare. Cuban healthcare is much better and very much cheaper than US healthcare.
Posted in Health
3 Comments
Promoting health equity: mixed scorecard for Australia’s policy response to Covid-19
Covid-19 has shone a spotlight on health inequities in society. Despite claims that ‘we are all in this together’, just like other historical pandemics, inequalities in Covid-19 mortality and morbidity reflect existing social and economic inequalities. Australia’s Federal and State/Territory … Continue reading
Coughing up a smokescreen
It isn’t accidental irony but a deliberate insult from Big Baccy – two fingers to the government, medicos and public health pros. Just above the small government warning on the ad banner’s bottom corner showing a tracheotomy is the latest … Continue reading
Posted in Health
2 Comments
Aged care should not be ‘pre-palliative care’ as Scott Morrison suggests
In Question Time, Prime Minister Scott Morrison made an unfortunate but revealing statement about our attitudes to aged care. He said: “For those of us who have had to make decisions about putting our own family, our own parents, into … Continue reading
Overcoming individualisation is fundamental to social change
Individualisation positions the idea of the autonomous, self-contained individual at the centre of political, ethical and psychological frameworks, and determines much of our current politics.
Posted in Health, Politics
6 Comments
PART 2: COVID controversies and vaccine shortcuts
The urgent need for a vaccine to protect us from COVID-19 is obvious. Scientists have produced some promising candidates but, as so often is the case in this pandemic perceived political imperatives are demanding ‘shortcuts’ in the development process that … Continue reading
Posted in Health, Politics
5 Comments
Covid controversies continue to hinder our efforts to end a deadly pandemic – Part 1
It is truly lamentable that in this most scientific of all ages, so much of the world is making a mess of tackling the worst public health challenge in a hundred years.
Posted in Health
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Victoria should stay the course
Victoria is now facing a difficult choice: to continue stringent lockdowns in the hope of getting COVID-19 cases down to zero, or accepting the lesser goal of opening up once cases are in single digits.
Posted in Health, Politics
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Air pollution from coal blights young lives, even before birth
Air pollution from Australia’s dirty coal-burning power stations needlessly causes 850 cases of low birth weight and at least 800 premature deaths per year. Coal is also the number one cause of the climate crisis. Clean renewable technology is available … Continue reading
Posted in Environment and climate, Health, Politics
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Sexual misconduct in our society: Can we do better?
Collectively our society can do better. Women should not have to rely on voluntary social networks, valuable though they are, to have the confidence to come forward when they encounter unacceptable sexualised conduct.
Posted in Health, Justice, Politics
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