Thank you Peter Baume, but whither the Community? How much money did the Governments spend on Early Discharge, and the Hospital in
the Home projects out of Westmead (Sydney) hospital in the early
90's? They were on the right track then, only that their reasons
were financial and not patient-centred. They espoused early discharge writ large for years...of course it was going to Free Up hospital beds for acute cases was their mantra. But as we know, it is 'cheaper' to service a person in their home than in a hospital.
Whilst beaurocrats are driven by budgets, the care for the people will worsen. I have retired from nursing now (4 years), but the decline was already obvious. Whilst factoring in lack of experience in nursing care, impossible working targets for nurses involving
more paperwork than patient care, you'd be better off in the Community than in most hospitals I've worked in over the past 15
years. The fracturing of Community in every area of our lives now
does not bode well for the small population of Australia. You mention the ageing and dementia increase. I, for one, have documents
in place so that the Govt. won't have to pay for any bed nights for me.

Is this the most sensible article you too have ever had the pleasure of reading on OLO?

And I like Lesley's contribution too!

Makes you think that instead of boards full of the great, the good and the self interested we could elect members of the community to run our hospitals.

A very enlightened article that shows people how to really solve the problem of ill health.

So what's the real problem? Lack of political will is often cited as one of them. But, we know that in the end politicians do what the people want them to do. It follows, then, that ultimately the ball lies in the court of each individual. In other words, problems persist because the majority of the public are just too damn lazy to tackle them!

Peter makes the point that we have citizen juries to determine guilt in court cases, so why not have citizens determine resource priority in hospitals? Good point. For the reason, you have to go back to history and the Magna Carta, Oliver Cromwell, The Declaration of Independence et al. Things like citizen juries and the common law came out of people fighting oppression by those in power. In other words, something bad had to happen to people before they did anything about the situation. The same looks like it will happen in reforming the health system. In reality, it's only when people feel some pain that they do something about it. And in that reciprocal sense, society overall bears the consequences of its own laziness.

Excellent article, Peter.

I agree, 'health' at the moment is predominantly about surgery and medication and, yes, we do need to change the emphasis to one of preventative health.

A big part of this is what we eat and at the moment this is largely controlled by corporations, who are far more interested in increasing their profit margins than in what the junk they peddle actually does to people. I agree, we have to get serious about advertising. Junk food and alcohol shouldn't be advertised.

Medicare must also be widened to include natural practitioners. It would be far more cost effective in the end as people healed and educated in this way are much less likely to go on and develop dementia, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.

Naturopaths and other alternative healers are usually more knowledgeable than doctors about real healing. They take a holistic approach and look at the connections between different organs and the symptoms occurring. Lasting health outcomes can be achieved this way, whereas many doctors just 'fix' the immediate problem without any acknowledgement or real understanding of the underlying cause/s.

I don't agree with your take on fluoridation though Peter. The jury is still out on whether or not we should be ingesting this chemical cocktail. It might lead to less tooth decay but it is very debatable as to whether it adds to overall health. In fact, there are very strong arguments to suggest it doesn't. Once again, the real answer lies in education, both in good oral health practices and in correct food and beverage choices.

Thanks though for a timely and sensible contribution to our very muddled health debate.

Bronwyn:

"A big part of this is what we eat and at the moment this is largely controlled by corporations, who are far more interested in increasing their profit margins than in what the junk they peddle actually does to people"

Rubbish. People need to show some self control and not ingest it themselves, and to also show some backbone and not cave into their kids. The only reason why these companies produce this food is because it sells.

Plus, there is nothing wrong with eating this food IN MODERATION! Those last two words are the key. Once a fortnight isn't a problem. Once a day (or more) is.

Re natural practioners, they have their place. There is a time when the different viewpoint is perhaps valid, but that isn't at all times as suggested by your comment.