In 1974, the Whitlam Government decided to exclude dental care from Medicare for two reasons. The first was cost. The second was political in that Gough Whitlam felt that combatting the doctors would be hard enough without having to combat dentists as well.
Forty-four years later, with Australia much richer and the proven success of Medicare, it is now time for dental care to be progressively included in Medicare. (more…)
‘Perhaps [we could consider] a review of what Pierre Trudeau and his government (in Canada) did in 1984 when they took on a system not dissimilar to ours – uncontrolled fee for service – and legislated that doctors could charge what they liked BUT unless they adhered to the fee negotiated between the provincial government and the profession (on an annual basis) the doctor lost all access to a Medicare reimbursement. The system still works today in Canada and few doctors opt out of it. Now there is a thought and a significant game-changer.’
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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have got it right when they frame the conditions we label as mental illness as issues of social and emotional well-being. They do not consider the endemic problems in their communities, as mental illnesses.
For many years experts in the field of drug policy in Australia have known existing policies are failing. Crude messages (calls for total abstinence: “just say no to drugs”) and even cruder enforcement strategies (harsher penalties, criminalisation of drug users) have had no impact on the use of drugs or the extent of their harmful effects on the community.
No ad breaks, declares Fox Sports of its coverage of the Boxing Day cricket test in Melbourne. Well none, if you don’t count the scoreboard endorsements, perimeter branding and other in-game adverts promoting one brand or another. All of them impossible to miss. (more…)
One of the few issues that many Americans can agree on in 2018 is, improbably, marijuana legalization. Pot is now legal in thirty-three states and Washington, D.C. In April, John Boehner, the former Republican Speaker of the House, made the rounds of the morning TV talk shows to announce that he now supported decriminalization. Boehner, a former Big Tobacco lobbyist, had declared in 2015 that he was “unalterably opposed” to making pot legal. Now, perhaps hoping to cash in on the marijuana “green rush,” he sits on the advisory board of Acreage Holdings, a New York City–based marijuana startup headed by investment bankers. Acreage hopes to be to Big Pot what R.J. Reynolds, Boehner’s other employer, is to Big Tobacco. Acreage’s CEO, Kevin Murphy, optimistically predicts a “massive consolidation in this business” that will earn his company billions by 2020. (more…)
Last year, 165 Indigenous Australians died as a result of suicide. Despite continued efforts to improve suicide prevention programs, there has been no no appreciable reduction in the suicide rate in ten years. (more…)
The A$1.25 billion Community Health and Hospitals Program Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced this week should be awarded a big policy fail. (more…)
The 2018 version of the Australian Atlas of Healthcare Variation was released on December 11. This is the third such annual atlas, which examines differences in healthcare use according to where people live within Australia and is produced by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care in partnership with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. This year it looks at healthcare use in four selected clinical areas: paediatric and neonatal health; cardiac tests; thyroid investigations and treatments; gastrointestinal investigations and treatment. Specific recommendations for improvements are made. There are interactive features available. (more…)
JENNIFER DOGGETT. Keeping people well and out of hospital should be a primary focus of our health system. Yet the evidence is that we could do much better in preventing and managing problems in the community, before they require hospital treatment.
In the post below, Professor Stephen Duckett, Health Program Director at the Grattan Institute, provides some useful advice to state/territory governments on how to focus own hospital avoidance without losing funding under the current ‘activity-based’ system. (more…)
From a rubber band lizard tail shooter to a molecular biologist and later medical scientist, it took a life time to understand why the lizard loses its tail and is able to regenerate it completely. The advancement of molecule biology in science and medicine has created sophisticated tools for looking into the stimulation and mechanism of tissue repair and led to the introduction of the field of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. A current example of fingertip regeneration is presented.
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Scientific breakthroughs in the prevention and treatment of tooth decay and dental disease have not yet converted dental practice, and consequently dental costs, in Australia. It will take a paradigm shift in how we organise and train our dental work force and how we fund dental services to deliver the benefits if these new prevention-focused treatment modalities. The improvements in outcomes and reductions in costs that are possible offer real incentives for governments to deliver dental care to all Australians. (more…)
The Victorian Government’s election commitment to a $395.8 million program to provide free dental care to schoolchildren will be welcome in a state where affordable and timely access to dental care is increasingly difficult. It’s time for a concerted campaign to ensure that improved access to dental care and better prevention initiatives are on the agenda for the upcoming New South Wales and federal elections. Governments must be persuaded that their failure to see oral health, dental services and caries prevention as essential components of health care is a false economy. (more…)
As a researcher, I have always been suspicious of statistics touted as incontrovertible truths; and of propagandists for a cause who claim to be the holders of effective remedies for complex social problems. The current ‘truths’ being touted (and winning huge increases in government funding) are that one in every five Australians has a mental disorder, that mental health problems are on the increase, costing the economy billions of dollars, and that a few chosen mental health experts have the solutions, if only their services were better funded. (more…)
Our dental care system is not working for a lot of Victorians. More than half a million Victorians say that the cost of dental care stopped them from getting care when they needed it in the past 12 months. (more…)
Health costs are rising through greater use of technology, ageing, lack of coordination and waste. Doctors provide many services that should be provided by others. Mental , indigenous and dental health have serious problems. Services are being delivered less equitably. There has been very slow progress, particularly in prevention of illness and disease .Our health system is provider not patient driven. (more…)
Australians have some of the best health outcomes in the world measured for example by high life expectancy and low death rates, although that is not the case with Indigenous Australians. (more…)
The significant impact that dental disease makes to the financial and social burdens of preventable chronic illness in Australia is rarely acknowledged, although there is substantial evidence of the inequalities in access to dental care. Dental care is not seen as an essential part of health care as if the mouth is not seen as part of the human body. This situation will not change unless and until answers are found to a series of crucial questions. (more…)
The formation of the Australian Health Reform Association (AHReform) is triggered by the need to have a community organisation with members from all healthcare professions to help create a safer working environment for all healthcare professionals so that they can provide the highest standard of care for healthcare consumers. This article introduces the subject of medical bullying which is widespread in Australia and AHReform’s proposal on how to effectively reform the healthcare system to reduce the incidence of depression and suicides among medical practitioners. (more…)
The Dietitians Association of Australia has pledged to cut financial ties with the sugar lobby following a series of investigations. The DAA initiative and the exoneration of surgeon and sugar critic Dr Gary Fettke are significant steps towards diet reform in Australia. (more…)
Last week was National Children’s week, with a theme that children’s views and opinions should be respected, that they have a right to be heard. (more…)
Australia’s disgraced cricket trio, Steven Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, may have engineered the ball tampering scandal in South Africa this year, but the damning cultural review released yesterday has found an arrogant and controlling Cricket Australia essentially to blame. (more…)
There is a very strong need in our community for a refreshing whole-of-government approach to confronting the major health issues of our day. This starts with the recognition that many of our political institutions were developed for an Industrial Age era, where a silo approach to delivering policy, exacerbated by a federated service delivery model, is no longer capable of dealing with the most pressing health issues of our time. These include the unconstrained tragedy of preventable non-communicable disease proliferation; which, according to a PwC study commissioned by Australian Unity, will be unsustainable in Australia as early as 2025.
The PwC report Practical innovation: closing the social infrastructure gap in health and ageing, paints a very sorry picture of the inadequacy of resources and political understanding and leadership as Australia’s population rapidly ages, calling for the need for a “truly holistic approach to health and wellbeing, this should cover all aspects of government, not just be restricted to health”. (more…)
Self-contained health programs directed at infectious diseases such as HIV, TB, malaria have wrought miracles, saving lives and enhancing prosperity. But a new challenge is looming globally, as subtle as climate change.
No self-contained ‘vertical’ programs work for non-communicable disease: here we need health systems that span conditions and facilities, linking hospitals to general practice and community services for a wide variety of patients and conditions, from chronic heart disease to mental illness.
Investment in health systems that address these needs is necessary (though not sufficient) for enhancing future productivity. (more…)
Fast-rising medical expenses are restricting access to healthcare and increasing long-term costs.
If two Australian capital cities were suddenly left without any dental services it would be considered a national crisis. But a problem of this size occurs each year and is ignored by governments and policy-makers. In 2016–17, more than 3.4 million Australians — equivalent to the combined population of Brisbane and Adelaide — delayed or avoided necessary dental care because of its cost. This startling figure is just one of the symptoms of the growing problem of out-of-pocket medical costs, which is undermining the equity, efficiency and universality of the health system. (more…)
The artemisia annua plant has been used for centuries in China to fight malaria. In 2011 a Chinese scientist, Tu Youyou, discovered how to extract the ingredient responsible for the anti-malarial effect (now called Artemisinin) and her reward was a Nobel Prize. Where there is good anecdotal evidence that something in a herb or plant can help with certain diseases, it’s more than appropriate for modern scientific techniques to be used to try and identify, purify and standardise the responsible chemical. This has nothing to do with the concepts associated with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Many of the drugs we use today are derived from plants thought to have medicinal properties in numerous cultures. (more…)
Remarkably and unfortunately politics, not clinical effectiveness, is powering the global penetration of Traditional Chinese Medicine into health care systems. The term “Traditional Chinese Medicine” (TCM) was dreamt up by Chairman Mao Zedong in a cynical response to the Communist Party’s inability to provide evidence-based health care for the then 500 million Chinese. Mao knew that TCM was largely useless and was derogatory about TCM practitioners but he none-the-less set about its expansion. This saw a reversal of a progressive acceptance of scientific medicine in China which started in the 19th century. (more…)
It has been sad to observe the growth in out-of-pocket expenses for patients seeking expert medical consultation and the resultant rising inequality in access to timely care and in health outcomes (“Specialists charging extreme fees”, March 6. These twin inequities are deeply felt in western Sydney. (more…)
The child was six years old. His parents were struggling to manage his Diabetes. He had Type 1 diabetes, the most serious form of the disease caused by his own immune system destroying his pancreas. As a result he could no longer produce required amounts of Insulin to control his blood sugar levels. Regular injections of Insulin were keeping him alive. The heartbreaking tragedy that descended on this vulnerable child and caused his death involved the practice of “paidalajin”, an alternative Chinese medicine technique that involves slapping, pulling and stretching the skin until it bruises.
The following is a transcript of the remarks by Spokesperson for the UNHCR Regional Representation in Canberra, Catherine Stubberfield at today’s press briefing(12 October 2018) at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. (more…)