What The People Want

Who was the dilbert who thought up the idea of allowing people to go to a public pospital and come away without an account. It's a recipe for bankrupting the country.

If you're uninsured you get fixed up for free. Hello!

What next - make Woollies and Harvey Norman's free?

The best thing the governments of Australia can do is privatise the hospitals and leave them to the medical industry to run - unprotected. Then we'd see just how smart they are!

Give everybody an account. If people are uninsured or can't afford to pay, put them on a scheme similar to HECCS.

Who is the dilbert that doesn't allow health insurance firms to rate premiums against risk. There's no incentive for people to keep themseleves fit and healthy. It punished the innocent and rewards the guilty.

Health insurance won't work until it's a compulsory, first party insurance rated against risk. That'd smarten a few people up! If it's good enough to require people to take out third party motor insurance it's good enough to require them to take out 1st party health insurance - or go on the medical equivalent of a HECCS scheme.

The bughers of Collingwood and Brunswick would be mightily aggreived if they ever discovered that the money that went out of their pockets when tarrifs were reduced on FCT ended up in the pockets of the doctors in Toorak.

Protection of the medical industry has created a bloated and largely ineffective industry. Ineffective? You know it's ineffective because the health of Australians is getting worse. Prescribing pills to mask symptoms is just another form of junk medicine.

By and large the Commonwealth Department of Health is just a welfare agency providing subsidies for people who are, in the main, keeping themselves in poor shape. It's unsustainable. Ms Roxon could fix all this in a copuple of strokes of the pen.

If the opposition keeps on getting doctors to get into politics we are only have a part time doctors and part time members the only winners are the doc come pollie getting two high wages

I find the comments interesting but fail to understand why the Federal Gov is getting as much blame as the Beattie Gov regarding health issues in Qld. I understood that the GST had given the states a huge amount of money that was to be used for health - where has it gone? The problem as I see it is the fact that QH is top heavy with bureaucrats and they are not up to the task of operating the hospitals without some medicos having an input.

I also take exception to people saying that they are "ashamed to be Australian". Personally I would never be ashamed to be Australian. I may be ashamed of the actions of some sections of the community and also some of the decisions our government makes but I love being Australian and this is the best country in the world to live in.

What most working people want is to be protected by a public hospital, which they contribute toward by paying their taxes. Universal health is a long ingrained concept in the Australian psyche. It is nice to see $1.5 billion returned to the public health system by Minister Abbott, for mental health, however if the funding does not include the provision of more doctors places, it will be a failure.

Lets remember that,according to the C-Mail, the Howard Gov is largely responsible for the dysfunction that now racks our Public Hospital system.Also the problems with Qld Hospitals exist in every other State Hospital System.

Somewhat encouraging, or is that because to followers of ABC are somewhat more intelegent?

It makes me realy wonder if any of the people having a go at the health system have had to be atmitted to hospital i myself was at i time when the media were at full steam putting the system down .The car and atenion i got was first class the doctors saved my life and this is the gold coast .So to read the crap people say and putting down all the fantastic workers in the system i say find a life

One of the fundamental causes of our problems with the health system seems to be that it is organised and administered from the top-down with the functions of health care delivery and health care regulation being controlled by the same central bodies.

Another fundamental cause is that it is a supply-centred "illness" system rather than a health or, better still, a wellbeing system.

A third fundamental cause is that priority in resource allocation is often determined by the wealth of users rather than by their condition.

A bottom-up, locally administered and demand-centred approach could help address these fundamental causes.

Why not aim to have open-to-all first call emergency treatment centres and well-being education and training centres combined with ambulance centres, next stage emergency centres at hospitals within a given travel time, local hospitals for less serious illness?

This Government is in crisis. I have no faith in Beattie any more and am at this moment polishing my base ball bat.

They are a bunch of hacks and under acheivers. This State deserves better then the nonsense we are currantly getting from this stale old bunch of losers.

Dr Bruce Flegg has some credibilty and I beleive in what he says. Get your scaple out DOC and go to work.
Stan

I reckon that Beattie has six months left to turn the health crisis around and he only has that margin because the opposition is not seen a viable. If he can't turn things around by then his government is cactus as I really can't see voters saying a health crisis of this magnitude is OK. I feel that voters will see the importance of sending the message to parties that a health crisis is just not on, more important than the calibre of the opposition.

THe cause of the current health crisis are complex and long standing - it has simply come to a head recently. Three of the main pressures are that we have a relative undersupply of doctors nation-wide, health costs have been rising at twice the rate of CPI over the last decade or more while peoples expectations have increased, and Queensland has traditionally been a low tax state and spent lower amounts on health and education that southern states. We will always have rationing and waiting list until the above changes.

However, we need more than simply throwing more money at the hospital system. As a doctor who has worked in the system on and off over the last 20 years, there is significant demoralisation amongst all the medical staff. Management decisions are now mostly made by non-medical staff, leaving medical staff little input. There is a lot of wastage and inefficiency in the system, because those actually doing the work aren't supported, or listened to, or trained to consider cost issues.

We could have a much better health system for the same 'price', if communication and decision making was more inclusive and collaborative. Medical and nursing staff are potentially idealistic, but they have be de-valued,
frustrated, burnt-out and ignored. It's time to change the whole working culture of Queensland Health.

I think most states are probably having the same problems. Certainly that's the case in NSW. The sense of crisis says more about the media's feelings about Beattie than the health system.

The erosion of Medicare is the biggest health associated issue for us, and that can't be sheeted home to Beattie.

No matter what political party, state or federal, have power, it will make no difference to our dilapadated health system.
What we had more than 30 years ago [the best ever] will never be achieved again, due to politicians finding other ways to spend taxpayers money, such as the mania for better roads due to the perceived pressure from all and sundry. Drivers contribute to death and injury,[not roads] no matter the condition of the road.
The "war on terror" is too costly in terms of dollars and lives and has led to reduced funding accross the board.
The health of the first Australians is underfunded .
Mental Health prevention and treatment is underfunded.
I believe that most Australians are misinformed by politicians re health, and only have an interest when it effects them personally or their family members. Remove the blinkers, adverse health can happen to anyone

Although Health is an issue - I think there is a certain amount of beat up by the press - Even though I have a condition that requires daily medication I have not encountered any problems accessing health care for me or my family and I believe that this is the case for the vast majority of Queenslanders. The Opposition doen't have any answers - in fact they come across simply as whingers. I think that Beattie and Robertson are doing the best they can with a difficult system - I think the real problem stems from the actions of the Federal Government in emasculating Medicare and up the costs of the PBS.

The whole issue of health is looking at who we can blame for the mess that exists. At the end of the day we can only blame the grossly missleading public servants for the mess. These people are stroking the egos of their political leaders by attempting to demonstrate good governance by falsifying figures of the allocation of budget to patient spending as compared to the costs of administration & to the size of waiting lists. Politicians need to remember that the public are awake now to the misleading figures & will retain this memory until the next election

The real political problem with the health crisis is that the opposition have no cohesive plan to fix the problem. It is one thing to identify problems but it is far more difficult to have a plan to fix these problems.
I am annoyed at all the Spin Doctoring going on over health from both sides of politics. We have a real problem that requires real solutions not a war of words between polititions.
Ian

I think the biggest disadvantage state Labor currently has is the poor quality of sitting members. I find it hard to believe that there is so little talent within the parliamentary party that Peter Beattie and other ministers have to take multiple ministries. Most of the sitting members are dullards (Nuttall in particular) so to me the answer to the malaise within the party is to get quality candidates. This extends to preselection. There are some bright members but it seems that they are totally outnumbered by hacks. As a postscript - McGrady has to go! Beattie is just adding to the general dissatisfaction within ALP ranks (I am a member) by trying to muscle his way out of untenable positions.

Polotics what a load of rubbish. People don't want excuses we want Ideas.I was a member of the Labor party. I joined thinking I would get involved and make a difference. I am a true believer in equality and the rights of the individual. I am also ashamed to be Australian. Australia is a unique country of hard working basicly good hearted citizens who will accept any one regardless of their background. The polotics of today is preventing the true Australian from expressing providing and showing the rest of the world what we realy want and how we realy are.

The health system will remain in crisis as a result of doctor shortages until QH start paying doctors wages that are commensurate with other states. Currently, 1st year doctors are receiving $23.45/hr, 2-3rd year doctors $25/hr and more senior doctors $27/hr. Mr Beattie has addressed the specialists' salaries, he now needs to address the junior and middle level doctors' wages. Would he work for $23.45/hr on completion of 7 yrs uni with 2 degrees?

As far as I can see the Federal Govt is 10% to blame for not opening up more places for students to study Medicine. However 90% of the blame must fall onto the Beattie Government. Why? Well because of the following, each year State Premiers and their Health Ministers gather in Canberra to be given an annual financial subsidy to go into each State Health System. The funds allocated are based on per capita of each states population. Now remember this money has been divided amongst the states to go straight into the health system. Yet once each state government has the cheque in thier hands they return to, in this case Queensland they begin to break this lump sum up into other Government Departments. Thats why the Beattie Government is 90% to blame for the Qld Health Crisis.

Interesting that people partly blame federal Libs for the health crisis - it shows a huge lack of understanding of who controls the budget. The federal government issue the funding and the state government control how it is spent. To increase the bureaucrats and decrease the health providers has lead to the situation we are in today. History shows that all labor governments, both state and federal, are notoriously bad financial managers and when labor finally gets to a situation similar to that which we have now they lose government and the conservatives have to impose severe restrictions to fix the problem. They are disliked for this and when things are good the people vote labor back in!!

Thanks for the comment Phil. You're right, the coalition agreement complicates overall party votes. But what I found most surprising was the fact that people were less likely to vote ALP because of the crisis, and also less likely to vote Liberal. That decision is not affected by who is running in their seat.

I think you could be getting a slightly false figure when you ask for voting intentions. For me, there is a choice of labor or national, as there will not be a liberal standing in my electorate.
If you asked me how I would like to vote, you may get a different answer.