On the Liberals, walk-in centres, and excrement flung with gay abandon

Jethro said :

johnboy said :

If you’re talking about the commonwealth funding arrangements they’re a desperate effort to stop the state level thieves defunding their hospitals entirely.

It’s an ACT responsibility, commonwealth money is not a right.

States/territories cannot fund healthcare on their own. Every state/territory’s healthcare department would collapse without Commonwleath funding.

Any sort of healthcare system that relies on creating incentives through the removal of funding is a bit dodgy in my books.

It would be interesting to see the statistics re commonwealth funding pre and post creation of ACT govt and then comparing that to what the other states and territories received for the same period.That way we’d have a much clearer picture as to whether we’ve been given a fair slice of the pie over time.Naturally this in no way excuses poor budgetary decisions and stuff ups made during this period.

johnboy said :

Or provide more resources to the ED if that’s where the people needing medical attention are turning up.

Radical concept I know.

Whooahh.. Settle down there son, let’s not get carried away here.

Or, as someone said recently “don’t contaminate the issue with some common sense”

johnboy said :

If you’re talking about the commonwealth funding arrangements they’re a desperate effort to stop the state level thieves defunding their hospitals entirely.

It’s an ACT responsibility, commonwealth money is not a right.

States/territories cannot fund healthcare on their own. Every state/territory’s healthcare department would collapse without Commonwleath funding.

Any sort of healthcare system that relies on creating incentives through the removal of funding is a bit dodgy in my books.

The walk-in centre does not reduce the number of ED presentations.

Logical speculation suggests that locating two large walk-in centres in Tuggeranong and Belconnen respectively will place them in closer proximity to the population likely to need/want to use them. It is further speculated that siting the walk-in clinics away from the hospital campus might reduce the number of people who follow the “WIC can’t do what I need, therefore I will walk 50 metres to the ED” pathway instead of the “WIC can’t do what I need, therefore I will arrange a GP appointment” option.

We don’t know if putting WIC’s away from the hospital will reduce ED presentations because we haven’t tried it yet. We do know that the WIC at the hospital does _not_ reduce ED presentations.

ED overcrowding and very long waiting times are also not due to the number of walk-in patients with minor or “GP” problems, but rather are caused primarily by access block; a backlog of patients occupying ED beds who should be somewhere else in the hospital. There seems to be a general lack of understanding on this point, especially on the part of our politicians.

Irrespective of their effect on ED presentations, WIC’s are obviously a good thing for the health of the community, providing timely access to health professionals who can either sort out your problem or, at the very least, provide informed, professional triage and disposition advice on where you should go and who you need to see to get things sorted. Whilst not doing much to relieve the stress on ED, I suspect they likely do much to alleviate pressure for scarce GP appointments.

I have a few mates that work in the Canberra Hospital ED, the problem is they say that people show up at the walk in clinic to have things done like getiing stiches removed. The nurses on duty arent allowed to remove the stitches so they are sent to ED. obviously this is not an emergancy and if the walk in clinic did not exist people would book in at thier GP to get stitches removed. There seems to be a long list of things that Nurses are unable to do, most likley due to insurance issues and protocale rather than skill base.

It seems to me that this can be easily fixed, just change the rules a little to allow nurses to cover a few more treatments, then clearly advertise what you can have done at a walkin clinic and what you need to see you GP for.

johnboy said :

Or provide more resources to the ED if that’s where the people needing medical attention are turning up.

Radical concept I know.

I believe the solution to EDs that can’t cope with the influx of patients is to strip funding from them as an incentive to do better.

chewy14 said :

We should put a walk in centre in the middle of Namadgi National Park.

I’m sure this will improve their statistics immensely

who cares about statistics ….. someone will alter them anyways

On the subject of “medical certificates”, and an employers opinion on what counts and what doesn’t – I find it an interesting historical process which is kind of at odds with modern concepts of privacy.

Eg, if I am forced to take a day off because my [[embarrassing (possibly itchy) illness]] flairs up, and go and see a specialist who works at a clinic with a name very specific to my illness – should I then present a medical certificate under that letterhead to my boss?

Frankly, I can’t see what the problem.

Surely they just need to readjust the figures.

After all, it’s apparently an accepted method of dealing with things in the ACT these days.

As i’ve said before, the sad thing is that even when ‘adjusted’ the ED wait times were still the (or one of the) worst in the country. I shudder to think what the real figures will be when they are released (I assume they haven’t been yet, but i’m pretty clueless on htese things!).

The walk-in centre’s brilliant. I’ve used it a few times for minor problems when I haven’t been able to get into a doc. The nurses are extremely competent and there was no sense of a rush to get out, as there is (understandably) with a doc.

There should definitely be more of them.