Some hospitals are having trouble with so called Superbugs and the problem appears to be deepening.
Many years ago when hospitals were run by Matrons, cleanliness beat Godliness by a mile. These tough old birds had their finger into everything and every window sill.
Last few times I have been in hospital, the bed and curtain linen has never been changed daily as it used to be, the ward floor was carpeted therefore unwashable and had a vac cleaner run over quickly twice in a week and the whole place had no sparkle and did not even smell clean.
Things have changed and not for the better, no wonder bugs thrive.

I take issue with the term "worried well" if you are worried you are not well.

Remember that 77% of health costs are for pharmaceuticals, the humble GP is not costing us anywhere near what Tanveer suggests.

Steve Madden,

77% of health costs are for pharmaceuticals? Absolutely not.

According to the Commonwealth Department of Health, government expenditure on pharmaceutical benefit scheme prescriptions for the year ending 30 June 2005 Australia-wide totalled $5,305 million, http://www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/Content/F046EA251DBC1AC0CA2570A500086F14/$File/summary.pdf

According to the NSW Health Department, state government expenditure on health services (mainly public hospitals) in NSW alone was budgeted at $9,970 million for the 2004-05 year, http://www.hnehealth.nsw.gov.au/news/releases/2004/June/budget_icu&nicu_22.htm

The only enterprises that might find pharmaceuticals are 77% of their costs are bikie gangs buying pseudoephedrine cough medicines to make speed.

Surely you must have meant something else?

Mike

Google OECD health costs. I do know what I mean I just cost the taxpayer $25,000 for rituxan, 6 weeks worth.

Worried and unwell.

Look what I found:

"Early medical detection and treatment is available, but the effectiveness of this in actually preventing heart attacks is questionable according to a study that was published in the journal Circulation.

"In this study, Dr. Lewis Kuller (University Professor of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology) reviewed the medical records of 326 individuals who had received medical examinations within the six month period before they died from a sudden heart attack. Eighty-six of the 326 examinations were done within the seven day period prior to death from heart attack. Not a single one of the 326 heart attacks had been predicted by the physicians.."

Not one! So my father wasn't an unusual case. Here we have the number one killer--heart disease and the doctor's can't predict who is even ill--and they trust their tests and not the patient.

The health system needs to emphasise being healthy rather than just fixing extreme bad health. It should start in school.

How ridiculous is it that little kids are made to sit still all day at a desk. Exercise shouldn't be just competitive sport once a week. It should be healthful exercises to increase fitness every day and that corrects bad posture. Aimed towards the unfit and not just for encouraging the kids who are going to 'win' interschool sports.

And what is with school canteens? Why don't they have healthy food? The kids will eat it if they are hungry enough--yay Jamie Oliver's efforts in this area.

Add to that the stress caused by homework--why do kids have to do homework? Why can't they learn everything they need to at school? There was a school that abolished homework and the kids grades improved that was in the paper recently (can't find the article on the net). So if there is no improvement in grades why stress them out and start a whole habit pattern of overwork and stress that they can follow for a lifetime.

In France overtime is illegal--but there productivity is the same as the US even though they do less hours. Go figure.

This article is of course a joke. GP's would all go broke without their neurotics. The fact is there is no such thing as the worried well, this is just psychiatry speak. Pain tells us something is wrong. The wrong can be physical, mental or spitual. In this culture most of our ills are mental/spiritual. Psychiatrists are people who do not generally aknowledge the spiritual part of us. They don't like to admit there are large areas of nature they have no knowledge and control over.
We live in a state so far removed from nature we have lost sight even of the seasons and the sun and moon. We no longer see nature or adhere to its rhythms and as a consequence we feel out of sorts, we have become entangled in our neuroses and fantasies to such an extent we have lost touch as a society of the very essence of our lives. We no longer take time to enjoy nature and as a consequence we live impoverished and diminished lives eeking out an existence in a consumerist hell. Psychiatrists can't fix this. GPs can commiserate though and maybe offer an anxiety agent to quell the angst.