Jesus wept; and there was i thinking it was only the public purse being injured by Howards delusions of cleverness.

I suspect he is motivated solely by the search for a polical wedge issue: 'saving' Abo. kiddies, 'saving' country hospitals, 'saving' the Murray Darling.

Whatever reason for such incompetent adventurism (no Treasury costings, no stakeholder consult, no time to read never mind debate legislation), a stunning amount of damage is being done. These will be known as Howards Mao years.

The push on the Mersey Hospital has nothing to do with a concern in relation to health provision. Mr. Howard is trying to buy votes. It's being called an experiment by Mr. Howard, a good excuse not to be involved in other Regional areas where Hospital services also need to be revamped.
It's quite`appalling how the Howard government ran roughshod over those who had created a plan to utilise health resources in the most efficient manner in Northern Tasmania.
If that is the best political administration they can utilise, then we will be fortunate if the Coalition loses the next election.

Well blow me down and roll me over, John Howard sticking his neck out to save a public hospital. He must have found he had a heart afterall.

Nice little twist in this authors article to appeal to peoples sense that avoidable deaths can be avoid by creating a center of excellence and by creating one superstructure this will decrease the numbers of avoidable deaths.

Only one problem, cost. Well there are two problems really, because costs then creates cost cutting.

A kind of paradox exists, for example hospitals of around 200 beds are cheaper to run than a hospital of 400 beds and as the size of the hospital increases so does the cost of treating a patient.

Then suddenly after closing a hospital down and transferring patients to a larger hospital, costs increase and then in come the razor gang to reduce costs, waiting lists increase, theatre time decreases, and fewer beds become available.

Yep a lovely mess.

Its a shame really we dont actually put the razor through federal and state parliments.

there is an alternative, called 'democracy'. but it needs citizens, subjects(or whingers in the vernacular) can't do it.

The underlying problem, as the article points out, is the difficulty of attracting suitable doctors to Tasmania. There are many untried methods of doing this available to the Federal Government; one would be to make the world-wide income of persons occupying specified medical positions tax exempt. This could well result in experienced and wealthy overseas doctors offering to fill the positions for no payment.

As the population of the west ages, there will be more and more demand for medical services, and the tried and true law of supply and demand will determine who is serviced and who is left out.

Is the Mersey the stalking horse for all other public hospitals ?

The Medicare agreement is due for renegotiation in 2008 so will a re-elected Howard Government make the same sort of offer for all public hospitals ? And force AWAs on to health workers at the same time ?

First corporatise then privatise...