Health
-
Suffer the little children
The plains are polluted. On a windless day – and they’re common – there’s no need for a sniff-o-meter to count the particles – just stand in a high place and scan the smogscape below. Continue reading »
-
Suzanne Davey: General Practice: A bleak future for quality and quantity
As a retired GP, I would like to fully endorse the excellent suggestions of Dr Katrina Watson, expressed in her recent article in Pearls and Irritations, to improve the current parlous state of General Practice in Australia. Continue reading »
-
Australia’s problems with cosmetic surgery: why they have happened and how to fix them
Hardly a month goes by without a new media report (and here) of alleged scandalous conduct of some doctors who call themselves ‘cosmetic surgeons’ but who lack recognised specialised surgical training. These reports have tended to focus on the harm done to patients and generally failed to explain to the public how and why the Continue reading »
-
We need more than an Auditor-General’s report on COVID-19 vaccination
The recent Auditor-General’s report on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout gave the Department of Health a C-minus – late starting work, not paying close attention to the curriculum, but scrambling to catch up and deliver an adequate but not wholly satisfactory performance. However, the aged care vaccine rollout raises a fundamental issue outside the scope of Continue reading »
-
Stumbling Surveillance: The end of the COVIDSafe App
It took a few years of tolerable incompetence, caused fears about security, and was meant to be the great surveillance salvation to reassure us all. Instead, Australia’s COVIDSafe App only identified two positive cases of infection during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, and failed, in every sense of the term, to work. Continue reading »
-
How to produce competent general practitioners…faster
Father and daughter general practitioners, Dr William Howson and Dr Anna Howson, work in the same group practice in Wonthaggi, Victoria. They’re acutely aware of the GP workforce crisis and have thought about ways to address this. Katrina Watson caught up with the family in their natural habitat. Continue reading »
-
What the strengthening Medicare Taskforce: Must do to modernise the primary health care workforce
The first of the five focus areas identified by the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce is to have a reliable training and development pipeline, to build a strong and vibrant primary health care workforce. This is a logical and critical first step, but it is a well-known maxim that form must follow function. Continue reading »
-
Integrating care for better health
Complexity is part of our contemporary experience and mind-bogglingly complicated health systems make even small changes difficult and broad reform almost impossible. Continue reading »
-
Tackling junk food
Australia’s Children a report from the Australian institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), was published in 2019 and updated this year. It struggled to find data that would enable a comprehensive understanding of our children’s nutritional and physical activity status. Continue reading »
-
My life with Friedreich’s Ataxia – some autobiographical reflections
I can still remember some events quite well of my early life when I was seven. For example, let me tell you about trying to ride a bicycle. It took me a while and took me some time before I got to master it. It was no easy feat. Continue reading »
-
Jeffrey Sachs and Neil Harrison: Did US biotechnology help to create COVID-19?
NEW YORK – When US President Joe Biden asked the United States Intelligence Community to determine the origin of COVID-19, its conclusion was remarkably understated but nonetheless shocking. Continue reading »
-
Katrina Watson: How to save General Practice
I’m a recently retired specialist doctor and I keep an eye on medical affairs. They affect all of us, especially as we get older, and people still ask what I think. Continue reading »
-
Peter Brooks and Peter Lewis-Hughes: A possible roadmap for a national pandemic plan
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted weaknesses and disconnections within Australian Health systems which significantly impacted on our ability to reliably detect and respond to this outbreak in a timely, effective and efficient manner. Continue reading »
-
Will 2022 be the year primary health care takes a step up?
One thing primary care has a lot of is reports about reform. But despite a significant investment in reviews, consultations, and paper over the last five years, not a single cent has been invested in transforming these words on paper into policies which benefit patients and practitioners. Even though the previous government’s ten-year primary care Continue reading »
-
Demographic future of China, the USA and India
Much has been written of the 21st century being the Chinese century in contrast to the 20th century being the American century. Continue reading »
-
Time to get serious about ventilation and air quality in training and post-secondary education
Australia is not doing enough to improve clean air in post-secondary education and training environments. Given the COVID-19 pandemic will be with us for a very long time to come, training providers and universities need to invest more in ventilation and air quality to ensure that students can learn in the safest environments possible. Continue reading »
-
Time to unleash the full potential of nurses
If we want to improve the health of Australia, we cannot continue to under-use the largest workforce in primary health care. Continue reading »
-
Complacency, wishful thinking and misinformation are all contributing to our lack of success in containing the spread of COVID-19
I don’t read “The Australian” so I did not know until I received a barrage of emails from ‘anti-vaxxers’ lauding the wisdom therein, that on July 4 the paper had published an ‘Opinion’ piece criticising Australia’s response to the SARS virus. The article claimed that the incompetence involved warranted examination by a Royal Commission. Continue reading »
-
Back to first principles on drugs
Just why is it so hard for politicians to see a better way forward in dealing with drugs in the community and to act on that vision? It is not for lack of evidence of what works to make things better and most of the community knows that. Continue reading »
-
Hospitals and general practice reform
Reducing the pressure on hospitals from patients who don’t require urgent and complex care requires reform of general practice. Continue reading »
-
Learning from Covid-19: A call for collective reflection
With the end of vaccine mandates for teachers and public servants in sight, it is an opportune moment for collective reflection. What can be learned from Australia’s management of Covid-19? What lessons can be applied to future challenges? Continue reading »
-
We need an Australian Healthcare Reform Commission
With a new Government it is time for Health System Reform. In fact reform is long over due. Continue reading »
-
Environment: Can astronomical phenomena inspire us to solve earthly problems?
Forget war, climate change, famine and dysfunctional economics for five minutes, lift your eyes to the pre-dawn skies and see five of our planetary neighbours. Continue reading »
-
Desperate Premiers call for radical redesign for health care funding
Australian hospitals are finding it increasingly difficult to meet legitimate, often critical demands for in-patient care. The money to do so is not there and staff shortages are critical. A combination of professional dissatisfaction re the standard of care they are able to deliver, has many health professionals deserting our public hospital system. Add in Continue reading »
-
If I were the Minister for Health
I would progressively wind back and eliminate the $14b pa taxpayer subsidy for Private Health Insurance and use that very large sum to fund the inclusion of dental care within Medicare and increase the funding to the states for expanded specialist services in outpatient clinics at public hospitals. Continue reading »
-
The erosion of Medicare
Large out-of-pocket costs for specialist consultations driven by inadequate indexations are undermining Medicare. Continue reading »
-
Do we continue down the pathway of privatisation of health by stealth?
Loss of public funding for specific aspects of health care despite overall (public and private) increases in expenditure, as detailed recently by John Menadue, has already happened out of sight. Continue reading »
-
What I would do if I were the Minister for Health and Ageing in the next government
A new minister in any portfolio has two tasks: fix the past and fix the future. Continue reading »
-
Healthcare reform is not featuring in the current election
Australia’s public hospital system is having a hard time meeting the ever increasing demand for in-patient care. Continue reading »
-
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 Continue reading »