Category: Health

Providing communities with accurate, timely and logical information about the control measures required to minimise the harm associated with infectious diseases is essential to avoid both complacency and panic. (more…)

I was caught unawares by being exposed to COVID-19, despite thorough knowledge of the online medical research. I am now in home isolation. If I can be caught unawares, you can too. (more…)

There is a common belief that medicine in all it variety would be better practised according to strict rules and guidelines. (more…)

The idea that the pressures of patient care cause doctors to withdraw from direct clinical work has been in the background of my observations of my colleagues and their work since the 1970s.

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John Menadue’s insightful essay on urgently needed reforms to health care in Australia ( P&I Feb 7) correctly emphasised that a “priority area for implementation and funding should be primary care with the rollout of multi-disciplinary primary health care clinics across Australia. (more…)

Although patients are the people who have the best knowledge of themselves and their particular concerns and who obviously have a strong interest in achieving a good outcome, they are often reluctant to ask their doctor questions. (more…)

A health service should be run in the  interests of the public.Unfortunately any worthwhile reforms of our health sector to benefit the public are usually vetoed by providers with their special interests. (more…)

The long-awaited Australian Department of Health website designed to provide Australians with information on specialist medical costs, which went ‘live’ on 30 December 2019, is (so far at least) a significant missed opportunity. (more…)

In the first of this 3 part series, we outlined the shortcomings and achievements of our efforts to plan and implement Healthcare Reform in NSW some years ago. In the second paper, we outlined the more recent approach in Denmark, which had a wider and more inclusive Reform Plan. In this third paper, we stress the enormous difficulties currently facing all Australians needing healthcare both now, and in the years ahead, and propose a way forward.

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In the first of this 3 part series, we described some partially successful NSW government healthcare reforms in Greater Metropolitan Sydney, and identified shortcomings in their planning and implementation. In this second part, we look at radical reforms to the Danish healthcare system, commencing in 2007, and some of the outcomes of those changes.

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This is the first of three papers. It deals with the history of some healthcare reforms in NSW in 2001, their scope and outcomes. The second will comment on similar but in many ways different and more successful healthcare reforms in Denmark, which has a similar population to the Greater Metropolitan Sydney Area. The third will discuss the present difficulties in implementing meaningful healthcare reforms in Australia.

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Opioid addiction is pervasive  and growing rapidly. Medicine and Science are threatened by the phenomenon. (more…)

It is a loss powerfully felt,but subdued. Not by politicians or the alcohol industry, but by doctors and nurses in the clinics and rehab. centres. The highly respected Michael Thorn has departed from the Foundation for Alcohol  Research and Education(FARE) as the CEO. What is the real story? (more…)

Cricket Australia’s gift to fans this Christmas was an unhealthy serving of booze, betting and junk food ads. (more…)

The Federal Government, which has long funded Australia-wide Aged Care Assessment Teams, commonly and often affectionately known as ACATs, has made a ‘surprise’ decision that it will privatise them from April 2021, with a tender to be held this year (30 December 2019).

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The Australian Digital Health Agency is expecting the medical profession to make a huge effective financial contribution in time and effort to make a flawed My Health Record System even a very partial success. The profession won’t wear it I believe. (more…)

This is a story of friendship and support between doctors in Australia and Vietnam, originating some 20 years ago, which shows how modest beginnings have evolved into important and lasting relationships of mutual respect and learning with one of our increasingly important Asian neighbours.

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One of the biggest challenges of modern health care, especially care delivered in hospital, is to identify, investigate, respond to and, where possible, prevent the near misses and adverse events that have been consistently documented in many developed countries. (more…)