Canberra health follies

DrKoresh said :

Doctors are all hippocrats, anyway.

Not you obviously, because that was painful.

Doctors are all hippocrats, anyway.

My experience is if you have private health insurance, you get looked after very quickly. Assuming you can afford the gap as well.
Thats the real issue, there is a two class health care system. Not just an ACT issue. ACT health care is miles above what you get elsewhere for a city of the size we have. IMO health care in Australia could be improved, but most of the issues are not as big as they are made out to be in the global scheme of things.

Ko. said :

LSWCHP said :

That doesn’t invalidate his original point, ie that the absolute crapness of much of the ACT medical system is crap. Four months to get a condition like a hernia addressed is third world standard.

Not really.

The fact you can get it treated (and for free) means it’s way above third world standard.

If the ACT Health system was the same as the one in Georgia they’d just let you die at home.

I’ve heard health care is poor in the US, but I didn’t realise it was quite that bad. 🙂

Aren’t you glad that you posted,side-splitting!

Around 5 years ago my son, aged 6 at the time, was diagnosed with severely enlarged adenoids, causing us panic when he stopped breathing in the middle of snoring at nights. After doctors and then specialists, he was put on the waiting list to be operated on by the one and only surgeon who could perform the operation in Canberra. We were told it could be up to 12 months wait, for a condition that was harmful to his health and even life threatening, even though the risk of that was probably quite small. During our wait, we moved interstate [NSW] and decided maybe getting onto their waiting list might be a better option, but found out not. Though we were living in Wagga Wagga, we’d have to go to Albury for the treatment as nobody was qualified at Wagga Base. The waiting list for just as long there.
In the end, we only had to wait 3 months to get the surgery done at Canberra hospital and that was on the priority 1 urgent list. I would have hated to be on the less urgent list.
Understand the frustration but refugees have no better service than us, maybe millionaires do, money talks.

LSWCHP said :

Two issues here.

The blazeMeister isn’t fond of refugees and believes they do better in our society than those of us who arrived as refugees/whatever a few decades earlier than current refugees. That seems wrongheaded to me. It’s a popular opinion, and I can understand why someone might think that, but it’s wrong.

That doesn’t invalidate his original point, ie that the absolute crapness of much of the ACT medical system is crap. Four months to get a condition like a hernia addressed is third world standard.

Go to a third world country and try getting a hernia addressed in four months… Unlikely, unless you are part of the small percentage of rich people.

Whilst it’s crappy having to wait, I can understand at this time of the year getting in for surgery for non-life threatening things is unlikely. Its just life. Not the best service that you weren’t told this in the first place, but I dare say its unlikely there is another Doc to be referred to at this time of year for non-life threatening stuff anyway.

LSWCHP said :

That doesn’t invalidate his original point, ie that the absolute crapness of much of the ACT medical system is crap. Four months to get a condition like a hernia addressed is third world standard.

Not really.

The fact you can get it treated (and for free) means it’s way above third world standard.

If the ACT Health system was the same as the one in Georgia they’d just let you die at home.

Two issues here.

The blazeMeister isn’t fond of refugees and believes they do better in our society than those of us who arrived as refugees/whatever a few decades earlier than current refugees. That seems wrongheaded to me. It’s a popular opinion, and I can understand why someone might think that, but it’s wrong.

That doesn’t invalidate his original point, ie that the absolute crapness of much of the ACT medical system is crap. Four months to get a condition like a hernia addressed is third world standard.

A couple of things. If you’ve been properly assessed by your GP etc and the hernia is not (or not even at risk of becoming) irreducible, then, in the public system, you are considered pretty much safe to wait until you can get in. You just have to poke it back in when it pops out and keep an eye on it, so to speak.
If it is irreducible then, even in the public system, you *will* get it treated ASAP!
My guess is they don’t think it is life threatening etc in any way (the medical system is OK with people suffering some hardship for a while – live with it).
As for surgeons having a break in Jan, the elective surgery in ACT is closed pretty much from Xmas til late Jan. In fact this was the same in NSW public hospitals until recently, when they decided to reopen a week or so early.
http://www0.health.nsw.gov.au/news/2011/20111209_00.html

Perhaps, if they want to reduce the elective surgery waiting list here, they need to investigate the same. Only being open 11/12 months of the year can’t help waiting lists – and most other industries can nowadays seem to manage their rosters to *not* have everyone away in Jan. Why can’t surgeons I wonder? Anyway….