System in good health
I KNOW Queensland (and Australian) Health, get bagged a bit, particularly by opposition parties at election time, trying to seek electoral mileage by flogging a dead horse, but there are a lot of misguided voters out there that still listen to these naysayers and honestly think our health system is broken.
Far from it, and I am sure that anyone who has travelled to other parts of the world will appreciate just how lucky we are in Australia, and governments of all persuasions here do their utmost to ensure top-shelf health care for all, within the constraints of budget.
With a present annual health expenditure nationwide of around $175 billion, that is a big slice to come out of government coffers for a country of 23 million, more or less.
No doubt some complaints about the service have merit, but they would have to be in an absolute minority.
Just go to the emergency/ casualty section of any hospital, especially on Friday or weekend nights, or indeed any day or night, and see the extreme conditions under which the staff in these wards operate.
In one word – frightening! And therein lies the culprit for a massive slice of the health pie – the spiralling increase in drug and/or alcohol/lawlessness and violence-fuelled activity and the accompanying downside trauma from such unfortunate behaviour.
As an aside, the total number of workers employed by the Townsville Hospital alone is more than 6000, which must make Queensland Health by far the state’s biggest employer, and by my calculation, this represents a payroll expenditure closing in on $1 million a day just for wages, (and I stand corrected) with operating daily/ annual expenditure no doubt a close second.
Multiply these figures by the number of hospitals around the country comparable to the TGH alone, and readers will begin to get a grip on the sheer enormity of the cost of health care in this state/country, and throw in the PBS for good measure.
And then we have our overworked ambulance service, which adds more dollars to the cost of health.
But that is another big story that begs telling.
DON MORRIS,
Townsville.