published letters

Published in The Age on Monday, February 13, 2006

Australians face an increasingly privatised two tiered health system with “safety nets” made weaker every year, a crisis in mental health, years long waiting times in public hospitals, increasing gaps between the health of the poor and the rich and patients struggling to find an affordable GP, let alone a specialist.

The $1.1 billion for health committed by federal and state leaders to address these problems is a sad indication of the priorities for health reform. It is only one tenth of the amount which will be spent propping up the private health industry over the same period.

The best they could commit to regarding the huge workforce shortage was some more full fee paying medical student places to produce doctors who aren’t good enough to qualify for HECS funded places, with no commitment to HECS places for doctors and nothing for nurses, just a commitment to talk more about it. The approach to mental health was similar, more talk.

Despite the promising federal/state cooperation, the real concern is that the states are now cooperating to pursue the federal agenda, the gradual erosion of our universally accessible and affordable health system and its replacement with a user pays, private system with targeted inadequate “safety nets”.

Dr Tim Woodruff
President
Doctors Reform Society