How bad are Australian Hospitals going to go???

Question

http://au.news.yahoo.com/071017/2/14p0v.html

I am totally disgusted. Why is this happening to Australia? I rarely go to the Emergency Room, but have been a few times either for one of my kids or my partner. My children have been for varies reason, but once one had a really high temperature, and it took them over 20 minutes to take it. That only happened because of he started convulsing.
What are your opinions??

Answer 1

EDITED to add ~ Wayne A, you have a point, but have you ever been to any of the Federally run hospitals? They are not much different! I speak from experience.

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Your comments are entirely justified ~ we should be demanding our politicians use our taxes to fix our health system, and it should be top of the priority queue, ahead of foreign wars and prime ministerial designer dining rooms.

My local hospital (western Sydney) is fine, even the emrgency room. There are sometimes long waits, but obviously if someone is dying and you have a scratch you are not going to get priority ~ nor would I want it. However, you can see the cracks starting to appear, particularly in staffing levels, which are dropping every time I visit.

My father had to go to casualty (emergency) three times last year (he has Parkinson's disease and cancer) and several times the year before. The facilities at his local hospital are run down, but he was treated well and with care, and left hospital a few weeks later in a much better condition than when he went in. Unfortunately, I noticed the lack of cleaning and support staff, the number of agency casual nurses and the worn out expressions on the faces of the docs ...

Not knocking anyone, but I lived almost half my life pre-Medicare and it was a LOT worse then, trying to get to see the one or two doctors a WEEK who would come down from their ivory tower to treat the 'poor' in public hospitals. There were good ones, but most of them treated us like we were medical experiments, not people.

A 20 minute wait is tough when you have a sick child, of course I understand that, but I have personally known people who have had to decide which of their very sick kids they could afford to get to a doc, pre-Medicare.

We have created a great health system through our taxes and determination to do better than elsewhere ion the world (and believe me, we have succeeded!!).

Instead of criticising the hospitals, we should be demanding that the Federal government give the States enough money to run them properly, and that the states stop 're-organising' health and start running hospitals efficiently.

We have a wonderful system, but penny pinching and bad management will destroy it.

Best wishes and good luck! :-)

Answer 2

I agree with the sentiments of most of the answerer's so far, but only half agree with Wayne. The Federal government is not giving the States sufficient funds to spend on hospitals, their nurses and doctors along with insufficient funds for the training of more doctors and nurses.
Tertiary education, as with Federal funding for all education, has been cut so drastically soon after the Coalition won power that their is a lack of skill people in all areas.
The States are doing a good job with the lack of funds being supplied.
Give the "surplus" to the States for Education and Health, and not to reduce our taxes as a "vote sweetener".

Incidentally, I have lived and worked overseas and only the hospitals in Hong Kong and Singapore were up to the standards in Australia, the rest were appalling.

Answer 3

I've had a few bad experiences at hospitals, but only because the Nurses & Doctors are over worked & understaffed. We seem to winge about everything here, but go to the US or UK & there far worst. The problem is mismanagement of Federal funding by incompetent State Governments, all Labor Govts. The Federal Govt needs to resume control here !

Answer 4

In 2003 I went to a hospital due to a car accident and when I was in recovery, the nurses treated me terribly- I couldnt walk and buzzed to get a nurse to take me to the toilet- after ages no one came so I tried to walk and fell on the floor. The nurses were still too busy talking amoungst themselves to pick me up. In the end another patients visitor picked me up. I must say though my expeience with emergancy wards from a recent appendectomy was very good- was only in there for a day though- I hate hospitals- I can recover better at home.

Answer 5

There are a few unfortunate cases but my experiences with hospitals in Australia have been invariably good. The staff are overworked but do an excellent job as far as they can. I would trust an Australian hospital above any other in the world.

Answer 6

You should see the ones in the US! You'll wait for 4 or more hours and then when your done you'll receive a HUGE bill that takes forever to payoff! There are some good ones, but for the most part they are horrible....Half the time a doctor won't even come see you and your at the mercy of the nurses....

Answer 7

its pathetic!, last year my dr sent us to hospital because he suspected my son, who was 2 then may have had meningitis, so we get to the er and were waiting for 5 hours!!!!!!!!! they just kept seeing everyone else that walked in, by then it was 10pm, i was 8mths pregnant, my other 3 kids fell asleep, the receptionist advised that we should go incase we could b there all night!, we left and by morning my son got worse, we drove him back and he was seen imediately as they knew how sick he actually was, he was put on the drip and given antibiotics through it, it ended up being a viral infection in his lymphnodes, thank god, cos if it did happen to b meningitis he may have died
our hospitals are stuffed!, i dont know what theyr gonna do about it, im scared to ever go to the er again, its a nightmare in there, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Answer 8

Australia's hospitals are incredibly good by world standards. Unfortunately, in our current political climate of futile point scoring, by both sides, it is to politicians' power grubbing advantage to create scare stories. They should be ignored, and the time and effort devoted to pointless, ridiculous blame shifting should be used to work out a solution.

Answer 9

hey i just read the news too.

i have a friend who used to be an intern in one of the public hospitals and she told me (which im not supposed to tell any other persons) that once there was an old lady who died in the waiting room because no doctors could attend to her soon enough. no action was taken and no special report about it was done.

Answer 10

Thats why I would rather the surplus be spent on the hospitals and schools instead of being used to try and buy our votes with tax cuts.