Health
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Peter Gibilisco. Friendship and Service Provision Ethos for People with Disabilities
In this article I want to discuss an aspect of the standardised procedures set by service providers in facilities that serve people with disabilities. More to the point, I am keen to explore how this affects the ethos of service delivery for people with severe or profound physical disabilities within such shared supportive accommodation. Let Continue reading »
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Climate, Economy, Health, Human Rights, Immigration, refugees, Infrastructure, Media, SERIES: Freedom, opportunity and security, World Affairs
Michael Keating. The role of government in policy renewal.
In thanking Ross Gittins for launching ‘Freedom, Opportunity and Security’, Mike Keating explains the reasons why he and I decided to launch this series, first online and now in a book. Mike Keating’s book launch notes follow. I will also be posting Ross Gittins’ comments. John Menadue. Thank you Ross Gittins and thanks to you all Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The unfairness and waste in health. Private Health Insurance is the real culprit.
Medibank Pte has been in dispute with the Calvary Hospital Group and now with UnitingCare over performance in their hospitals. At last our largest private health insurance company, MBP has come to understand that the private providers, hospitals and doctors, are really in control. These private providers determine the quality of care and its cost. Continue reading »
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Peter Gibilisco and assisted by Bruce Wearne. A Special Minister for Disability.
Disability support and policy is currently undergoing much needed reform. Such reforms highlight the attenuated life chances of people with disabilities and how these can be mitigated by policies that emphasize the inclusion of people with disabilities into the social life of us all. There is much public money being spent on getting things right, Continue reading »
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Wasteful costs in health.
Following the ABC Four Corners program on health costs in Australia, there have been a number of very good follow up articles. The first, in The Conversation on 29 September is by Ray Moynihan ‘Costly and harmful: we need to tame the tsunami of too much medicine’. https://theconversation.com/costly-and-harmful-we-need-to-tame-the-tsunami-of-too-much-medicine-48239 The second, in the AFR on 5 Continue reading »
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Stephen Leeder. The takeover of the Medical Journal of Australia.
A quick glance at the last page of the most recent issue of the MJA reveals that there is as yet no replacement editor-in-chief and that two of the most senior medical editors – Janusic and Armstrong – are missing in action, as is the Editorial Advisory Committee. There is an interim editor. Many of Continue reading »
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Sandra Jones. Don’t worry about the kids: Let’s just protect the alcohol industry
A recent study from Monash University found that a quarter of all alcohol advertising on Australian TV was during televised sports. Importantly, 86% of alcohol advertising between 6.00am and 8.30pm (that is, when kids are most likely to be watching TV) was during sports programming. The broadcast of alcohol advertisements on commercial television in Australia Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing.
I have frequently raised my concerns about the ability of the Department of Health and Ageing to develop good health policy and manage health reform. A test of the new Minister is whether she can help facilitate the necessary reform. See below links to two earlier articles I wrote on this problem. The first is Continue reading »
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Peter Day. “Sally’s worth it.”
Harry Anslinger’s dream to rid the world of drugs was given legs in 1930 when he was appointed the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department‘s Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He was a brilliant bureaucrat with a grand vision underpinned by prohibition; a man who single-handedly turned a marginalised, underfunded Bureau into an uncompromising and Continue reading »
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Jane Tolman. Facing up to dementia.
As I reflect on the ongoing complaints at federal and state level about our ailing health system, widespread community concerns and a medical culture which is still often hospital- and doctor- centric, I wonder how we will be able to sort it all out. In the 20th Century, when average life expectancies were in the Continue reading »
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Mack Madahar. Nurse Practitioners: Challenges and Opportunities.
Nurse Practitioners were provided access to the MBS in November 2010. Besides limited access to pathology/radiology, nurse practitioners were provided with four time-tiered MBS item numbers for professional attendances. While most nurse practitioners have established themselves in public hospitals, primarily because of the relative financial certainty it provides, there are a handful of NPs trying Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Our health system is sustainable.
To justify an increase in the GST, Premier Baird has joined the long list of conservatives who keep telling us that our health system is unsustainable. Earlier the Treasurer, Ministers for Health and the Commission of Audit warned us in one way or another that the Australian health service is unsustainable, particularly with an ageing Continue reading »
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Kerry Breen. The Australian Medical Association vs. The Medical Journal of Australia.
Troubles at the Medical Journal of Australia and the birth of ‘Friends of the MJA’ The Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) has been in existence for over 100 years and has become the most important national publication for every aspect of the health and health care of Australians. It is owned by the Australian Medical Continue reading »
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Ross Kerridge. GP Remuneration.
Current Affairs I understand that at the recent National Conference of the AMA there was general support for a move to help funding systems other than just fee-for-service. Ross Kerridge examines this issue below. John Menadue Healthcare Heroes. How to reward GPs for what they do best: a hospital specialist’s proposal There is an old Continue reading »
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John Dwyer. Pseudoscience and health care.
Current Affairs The catalyst for my need to share with you frustrations associated with the penetration of pseudoscience into Australian health care and the poor protection of consumers from same, was generated by the release of the details of the long awaited Free Trade agreement between Australia and China. We now know that Chinese medicine Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Triple-dipping by Big Pharma.
Current Affairs The major pharmaceutical companies in Australia, almost all foreign owned, keep pushing their luck at the expense of Australian consumers and taxpayers. In my series on health reform, I pointed to a minimum of $2 b. p.a. that we could save in drug costs if we had a government purchasing system like the Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Facts on the $11b per annum private health insurance industry subsidy.
The Minister for Health and Ageing, Sussan Ley has said she wants to canvas community and expert views on PHI (private health insurance). If she does consult the community on this issue that will be a welcome change, for consideration of the PHI is usually a private discussion with the vested interests – the PHI Continue reading »
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Alex Wodak. How should medicinal cannabis be provided lawfully in Australia?
Current Affairs Ms Sussan Ley, the Federal Health Minister, recently acknowledged that medicinal cannabis was likely to proceed in Australia but advocated proceeding cautiously. A Private Members Bill is under consideration and seems to have strong support including backing from both sides of the aisle. So the question is now increasingly moving from ‘whether’ to Continue reading »
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John Dwyer. Politics trumps health policy yet again.
Current Affairs. Health. A new medical school in Perth will create more problems than it will solve. As must also be true for many colleagues who have been focussed on evidence based solutions to the serious shortage of Australian trained doctors working in rural communities, I am frustrated and annoyed by the Prime Minister’s capricious Continue reading »
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Philip Clarke. Pharmacy sector in dire need of reform.
Among the most significant reforms proposed by recently released Harper Competition Policy Review is the removal of regulatory restrictions that greatly limit competition in the community pharmacy sector. But implementing the recommendation will require politicians who are up for a real challenge. Any changes to how the pharmacy sector works involves taking on what has Continue reading »
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Alex Wodak. Prohibition and its discontents: who really killed Chan and Sukumaran?
The fall out from Indonesia’s execution of Chan and Sukumaran for drug trafficking continues. In their unprecedented press conference on 3 May, the leaders of the Australian Federal Police argued that under existing laws and guidelines, they were obliged to share intelligence with their Indonesian counterparts. Moreover, under similar conditions in future, the AFP expects Continue reading »
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Anne-Marie Boxall. Mental health challenges in rural and remote Australia
Mental health challenges in rural and remote Australia are widespread and serious. Although the prevalence of mental illness is about the same across the country – about one in five people report having had a mental health problem in the last 12 months – a higher proportion of people in rural and remote areas pay Continue reading »
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John Dwyer. Sliding down the slippery slope to two-tiered health care.
Private Health Insurance gets a foothold in primary care. Imagine the following scenario. You are checking in with your GP’s receptionist for your scheduled appointment and are asked to produce your Medicare Card and, if you have one, your private health insurance membership card. If you have both you move into the waiting room on Continue reading »
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Alex Wodak. The toxic combination of illicit drugs and politics: Australia confronts ice
John Ehrlichman, the Watergate conspirator, claimed to have come up with the idea of waging a war on drugs while he was a member of President Nixon’s ‘Committee for the Re-Election of the President’, wonderfully referred to as ‘CREEP’. The aim, Ehrlichman told Nixon, was to ensure that the elderly wealthy white voters who 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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Alcohol is a bigger problem than ice.
In the Herald Sun on April 8, 2015, Jeff Kennett, the former premier of Victoria, said that it was time to stop the promotion of alcohol. See link to article below. In this article he says ‘If it is good enough to ban the advertising of tobacco products, if it is good enough to make Continue reading »
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Ian McAuley. If the government wants price signals, it should stop supporting health insurance.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has declared the Medicare co-payment proposals “dead, buried and cremated”, but two related ideas behind it live on: Medicare is becoming “unaffordable” and our universal health system should morph into a program reserved for the poor. The government’s original justification for the co-payment was to bring more “price signals” into Medicare. Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Alcohol and junk food – winning at the expense of our health.
If you seriously follow almost any major Australian sport as I do, you will be conscious of the saturation alcohol and junk food advertising. And in the run up to the centenary of Gallipoli there are no holds barred to link heroes and booze… VB now have a new television advertisement filmed at Melbourne’s Shrine Continue reading »
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Lesley Russell. The debate we’re yet to have about private health insurance.
The six previous papers in this series highlight the poorly defined role private health insurance plays in the funding and delivery of Australian health care, and how the Abbott government might allow this role to expand. But major changes to Australia’s iconic Medicare system should not happen by stealth. They require full analysis and debate 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 »
