More rottenness in a government health system

Protecting themselves -- by concealment, gags, persecution and coverups if necessary -- is all that bureaucrats care about



There was this good-natured, quietly spoken guy with whom I once worked and who has since moved to distant shores. I knew he was leaving, something to do with his wife's work, but I was out of the office when he left and I never did get the chance to say goodbye and wish him well. Preoccupied with the distractions of my own immediate world, I did not spare him another thought until last week when amid the clutter of the email in-box appeared a message from him.

He had been reading this newspaper online and had emailed to compliment me on a piece I had written, a kindness which was typical of this likeable, affable bloke. It was a brief message but the sting was in the tail for in the last paragraph he revealed his reasons for leaving Australia. It had, as I had vaguely heard, been because of his wife's work. She had, not, however, been offered a better job. A health professional employed by Queensland Health, she had bravely, if naively, written a letter to the government voicing her concerns about certain practices within the department. I don't know the contents of the letter, only that it was critical of the department.

Her reward, for placing her concerns for the public ahead of self interest, was to be hounded out of her job. Her career, and the lives of her husband and young children were trashed. They were, effectively, driven out of their own country and became political refugees.....

The ripples in the pond of disasters that is Queensland Health, however, continue to spread. The president of the Australian Medical Association, Zelle Hodge, has said the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital was operating at 130 per cent capacity, making conditions unsafe for patients by pushing staff beyond their limits. Staff tell of patients being left on trolleys for 24 hours before a bed can be found and of people suffering cardiac arrests in hospital corridors while waiting for treatment.

Earlier this month the CEO of RBWH, Dr Thomas Ward, was removed after five weeks on the job when he all but brought the hospital to a standstill after summarily sacking the executive director of nursing services. How did he pass the selection process? How can someone who apparently had little or no understanding of how to run a hospital be placed in charge of one of the largest of such facilities in the country? Would this not indicate that the interviewing process is seriously flawed or that those conducting it should be replaced? We'll never know the full story because Queensland Health slammed a cheque for $100,000 into his hand and bundled him on to a plane and out of the country less than 24 hours after his contract was terminated.

Over the past few weeks it has been revealed that Queensland Health placed the lives of thousands of north Queensland women in jeopardy by covering up problems with breast cancer screenings. A suggestion last August, when the problem of incorrect diagnoses was revealed, to establish a hotline was rejected by Queensland Health because it could "create unnecessary anxiety". Asked to choose between anxiety and death, I'm reasonably certain most women would choose the former.

Another ripple followed the revelation that a report by an independent medical investigator employed by Queensland Health into the death of a child was censored and references critical of the department deleted. Yet another ripple was caused by the leaking of a memo from RBWH which said that "there have been ongoing elective operating sessions cancelled due to insufficient nursing and anaesthetic technical staff to provide safe patient care". Another leaked memo from the director-general of Queensland Health, Uschi Schreiber, said that in relation to lengthy waiting lists for surgery cases, "despite the additional funds in 2005-2006, the available data indicates no substantial improvement".

While this memo was being written, the Government was spending $300,000 mailing letters to householders telling them what a wonderful job it had done in creating more hospital beds and shortening waiting times, part of $2 million spent on a public relations campaign to paper over the deep fault lines running through Queensland Health. Maybe one day, someone will have the guts to truly take on the well paid bureaucrats who run the department. Then, perhaps, my quietly spoken ex-colleague and his wife and kids can come home.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

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