Public hospital system..A real eye opener

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Originally Posted by Eevo

no
taxes should pay for a base level.
if you want better, go private.
if your not happy, you should have complained. its your money.

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And this is the problem with the attitude of most people today.

I have had top private cover for years. Still do.

When I had my back surgery, I was given the option of going private by the surgeon, however, he didn't have any openings for 2 weeks. OR, I could be transferred to a public hospital, where he could operate the next day.

As anyone who has lived with chronic pain will tell you, you get to the point where you will do anything to make it stop. By this stage, I was already hooked on the morphine, and the prospect of waiting another 2 weeks for an operation didn't appeal to me. So I went public.

And as for complaining, well, that is a bit difficult when you cant even move. My wife had been to the desk a number of times, and each time she was told that someone would be with us shortly. it is easy to pass comment, or to judge someone elses actions when you are not there. When faced with the possibility of never walking again, or in my youngest daughters case, of loosing her unless they operated straight away, I can tell you, rational thoughts and filling out a "customer feed-back form" are the furtherest things from your mind.

Our taxes are already paying for a base level of care. That's the whole point of this thread. However, that base level is now too low. Increasing the Medicare levy would see more funds injected into the public hospital system where it is needed.

In reality, I shouldn't need to carry 2 insurances. Medicare being one, private being the other. But I do. Do I like paying twice? No. Do I like the fact that neither the Medicare rebate to doctors, or the amount my private insurance covers reflects the true costs of providing those services? No. But, unless something is done about it, we will end up going the way of other countries, where only the rich have access to good medical services.

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Originally Posted by Basil135

When I had my back surgery, I was given the option of going private by the surgeon, however, he didn't have any openings for 2 weeks. OR, I could be transferred to a public hospital, where he could operate the next day.


And as for complaining, well, that is a bit difficult when you cant even move.

Our taxes are already paying for a base level of care. That's the whole point of this thread. However, that base level is now too low. Increasing the Medicare levy would see more funds injected into the public hospital system where it is needed.

In reality, I shouldn't need to carry 2 insurances. Medicare being one, private being the other.

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uncommon for the public to have to smaller wait than private. my mother works in a hospital (with no ED) in medical records, i consistently hear about how long you would have to wait in the public system.

i more meant complaining post op. sorry for not explaining my self.
i dont agree the base level is too low but that links into the next paragraph.

i dont agree with paying for both medicare and private health insurance. its double dipping by the govt.

Part of the problem is private patients have higher priority in public hospitals than public patients.

Public hospitals are built with public money and should be for public patients - private patients should be only dealt with in private hospitals - of course all individuals irrespective of whether they have private or public cover can be dealt with in the public system as a public patient.

I just disagree that private patients being treated as private patients should be given priority for public beds (the hospital makes more money).

The priority for public beds should be on the basis of need, not who pays the hospital the most.

Garry

well said

Some time ago I worked doing extra shifts as an agency nurse working mainly in private hospital ICU and CCU

On many shifts the whole unit would be staffed by agency RN with no MO in the unit, we would flip a coin to decide who would be in charge. One place doing cardiac surgery and CCU we had only one saturation probe for 4 patients so had to share the probe and do extra arterial blood gas analysis all at a cost to the patient. We took the blood, stuck it into the machine, read the results and modified the ventilation on that result. The ABG machine was connected to a private pathology company and the patient billed as if it was all done by the Surgeon.

Do I think private hospitals are safe? Not always,

I haven't read all this thread but will say that I certainly have no complaints with the care I've received from the public health system in WA. When my right knee went completely I had the TKR within 3 weeks, very full on physio afterwards and it's been very good but obviously took a bit of getting used to.
A neighbour had his done privately at St John of God Subiaco (Our love of God inspires/guides us but don't forget your fat wallet) and had to have it redone with a couple of months. He was not a happy vegemite.:D
We used to pay full private cover until the pollies stuffed it up 30 years or so ago with their stupid wrangling about how it should be done.
Now the so called "not for profit" insurers provide cover but not the full cost but hey, there's plenty of big paying soft jobs for the fat arses to polish chairs.:o
AlanH.

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Originally Posted by garrycol

Part of the problem is private patients have higher priority in public hospitals than public patients.

Public hospitals are built with public money and should be for public patients - private patients should be only dealt with in private hospitals - of course all individuals irrespective of whether they have private or public cover can be dealt with in the public system as a public patient.

I just disagree that private patients being treated as private patients should be given priority for public beds (the hospital makes more money).

The priority for public beds should be on the basis of need, not who pays the hospital the most.

Garry

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Thats not necessarily true.

Public hospitals could not meet their budget without private patient subsidies, the big problem these days is that before Medibank (Medicare version 1) about 80% of patients were privately insured, the remaining 20% were treated by the HMO for free as an offest for their treating their private patients in the hospital, the 20% uninsured did get billed but it almost never happened that the debt collectors were sent out. The hospitals costs were covered by the fees charged to the 80%. (4 insured patients subsidising 1 uninsured).

Since Medicare the rate of insurance has dropped as low as 30% with some rebound in recent years, but a lot of the insured go to private hospitals which were at one time rare in Australia. The situation is that for every insured patient in a public hospital today there are about 3 or 4 uninsured patients, so the previous cross-subsidisation is negligible.

Private patients get allocated beds in the same priority as public patients although private surgeons do often have private theatre lists where they can treat private charged patients.

We just built a new building but without the public and private corporations donating millions of dollars the government would not have fronted with the other half.

I cant complain spent 2 hours at Fairfield hospital (Sydney) last night small accident with a ferret hatch seen by nurse in less than 1 min, xray in about 10, doctor about 5 min after that, had to wait for plastic surgeon for about an hour he supervised a resident putting what is left of my finger back together and made apt to see plastics again in a week. Less than 2,5 hrs all up:D

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Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Thats not necessarily true.

Public hospitals could not meet their budget without private patient subsidies, the big problem these days is that before Medibank (Medicare version 1) about 80% of patients were privately insured, the remaining 20% were treated by the HMO for free as an offest for their treating their private patients in the hospital, the 20% uninsured did get billed but it almost never happened that the debt collectors were sent out. The hospitals costs were covered by the fees charged to the 80%. (4 insured patients subsidising 1 uninsured).

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NOW she tells me ! :o

- Agree. When I had my crash at 17, I had no private insurance and the public hospital eventually sent me an account, which I paid. I was too honest (!) to NOT pay...
From memory it was'nt too onerous, (Took a few months to service...) but sufficient to wake me up and I've had private cover ever since.

Emergency Departments are for Emegencies!
So many people present to them unnecessariuly with ailments that should either be seen by a GP or remedied at home.
Hence the reason patients have to wait for hours in the waiting room and ambulances are ramped for hours on end with patients on stretchers.
It happens almost everywhere.


Cheers, Mick.