Articles

First published: Wednesday, August 24, 2011

In their final report in 2008, the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) called ‘on the World Health Organisation and all governments to lead global action on the social determinants of health with the aim of achieving health equity.’ (CSDH 2008)
The report of the Commission had three main recommendations.
1. Improve daily living conditions
2. Tackle the inequitable distribution of power, money, and resources
3. Measure and understand the problem and assess impact of action

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First published: Monday, August 1, 2011

In the May Budget there was a major mental health funding initiative. There were some small cuts to current programs, and significant expansion of others. Two of the programs affected are aimed at providing short term psychological treatment. What do the changes tell us about the direction of Government policy?

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First published: Friday, July 22, 2011

Inequalities in health outcome and health status are very obvious in Australia despite the continuing increase in life expectancy and decline in infant mortality. One could argue that inequalities are inevitable. We are not born equal and we can never have and nor might we want equality. When inequalities are due to potentially remediable differences in our society however, the issue is one of equity. This is an issue of social justice. It is also a reflection of the overall health of our society. Trends over the last decade makes one wonder whether our policy makers and society as a whole are content to simply tackle gross inequity in a piecemeal fashion rather than tackling the much more challenging task of aiming for equity.

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First published: Friday, July 22, 2011

Health reform was flagged as a major part of the election commitment of Federal Labor when it came to power in 2007. After input from a range of inquiries the Federal Government finally made some proposals which faced substantial resistance particularly from state governments. Following Council of Australian Government (COAG) meeting earlier this year substantial agreement has been reached on what is proposed. It is now being implemented gradually.

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First published: Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The proposed health reform will do little to address the most pressing needs of our most needy patients.

THE federal government’s recent rhetoric has been that hospital funding formulas are of little interest to patients looking for care. Yet the emphasis in the new reform plan is about hospital funding.

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First published: Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Since before the last election we have been promised a root and branch analysis of the health system and a plan to fix public hospitals. We don’t even have a health system. Instead we have multiple poorly connected pieces For our patients there is the public hospital system, the publicly subsidised private hospital system, the GP system, the community care system, the publicly funded private allied health system, the mental health system, the publicly funded private dental system, the public dental system, the Aged Care system, and a myriad of other poorly connected pieces of a nightmare for our patients to negotiate.

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First published: Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The health of patients with cataracts is being forgotten by both major parties in the debate about Medicare rebates for cataract surgery and for joint injections. The Federal Government’s main interest appears to be to save money even though it knows that some eye surgeons and arthritis specialists will not reduce their fees, thus leaving patients to pay more or simply not have the vision saving operation or the joint injections which these highly skilled health professionals can perform.

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First published: Friday, November 21, 2008

Are doctors the cornerstones of primary health care? If they are currently, they shouldn’t be. Patients should be. The fact that we have in this country a health system which uses a funding system for primary care centred around funding providers – not patients, not need – is a sad reflection that patients are no longer the cornerstone of primary care.

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