A sick state of affairs
TAXPAYERS CARE DEEPLY ABOUT THEIR HOSPITALS AND HEALTHCARE. HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A COMMUNITY SCORNED WHEN PUBLIC MONEY HAS BEEN WASTED AND IT THEN HAS TO SUFFER
IT’S a hazy memory. More of a feeling actually but it’s as vivid today as it was all those years ago. Carried by Dad with my Mum and siblings walking alongside, I felt rather than knew that we were entering a hospital to visit Grandad before he died. It’s a flash, mostly black with just the light at an entrance which I remember most vividly. I believe it is my first memory of life. Humans have a strong affinity with hospitals. It’s where some of the strongest emotions are felt. Life, death, sickness, hope, success and miracles. For patients, volunteers and workers, hospitals are a lifeblood. My Nanna spent her last years in one not knowing who the hell her own family was. Loved ones would sit with her for hours watching her dementia-ravaged brain deterio- rate as her body and soul willed her to carry on.
For a young girl it was confronting to witness.
Her jokes once about my shortcropped hair making me look like a boy turned cruel when just a few short years later she looked at me in a fog and said: “Ah, the little boy.”
So when Dad got cancer, hospitals represented a pretty bleak place.
But they are also filled with joy and hope.
Dad walked away with his life and I delivered one of my own.
Thousands of pages of the Cairns Post over its long history have been filled with incredible stories of tremendous care, gifted brains, grateful recipients and innovation.
Some of the biggest responses to stories we receive are to do with healthcare.
The new Cairns Hospital was borne from the love and fierce determination of its community. This paper spearheaded a massive campaign to get it built. Cairns Hospital is now in a budgetary black hole and questions need answering.
Politics, poor management and decision-making, population growth or not enough funding. Which one is to blame? I suspect a little of each. Minister for Health Cameron Dick brought the issue to a head when he served the health board with an ultimatum, which forced them to fall on their scalpels.
However, we are far from knowing yet what and who is to blame for this $80 million “code red” and what will need to be done to fix it.
What this community won’t stand for is a “solution” that undermines professionals’ capacity to deliver quality care and impacts on patients’ safety.
Taxpayers care deeply about their hospitals and healthcare.
Hell hath no fury like a community scorned when public money has been wasted and it then has to suffer.