Yes a vexed question Suse.

I have a neighbour sent home from emergency 3 times after a gall stone "ATTACK", because she wasn't sick enough to operate yet. Guess they wanted her so sick it would require 14 days of hospitalisation as it ultimately did.

Then we get doctors refusing bypass surgery to a smoker, but sticking not just one, but a second liver in people who destroyed theirs with alcohol/drugs.

How about the ambulance hounding a single parent for payment when it was a school who called the thing, but continuing to pick up drug overdose dropkicks, many times, despite no payment of the bill.

It is about time we applied the Darwin principle with people who try to kill themselves with their lifestyle, so lets not replace livers, but refuse bypass surgery. Refuse one, refuse them all. Doctors should not be arbiters.

Suseonline,

Agreed that everyone should be proactive about their health, which implies that they do the very best they can for themselves by eating a balanced diet with portion control, make physical movement part of their day and participate actively in life around them. These behaviours, well known and proved, will grossly reduce their need for medical intervention.

However you should not be blaming men (or indeed women) for being socialised into being low or high consumers of health services. -Which was implicit in your reply. If that explains why women frequent doctors and men do not, then it the syndromes are worthy of research and solutions.

The other issue that needs to be studied is the very poor tolerance of any discomfit and especially pain by the community (and I suspect very much so for women who go to the doctor more). Not saying that people should endure significant pain, but some pain and discomfort are a natural part of life. Taking women for example, they have been conditioned by advertisers to demand analgesics even in the expectation of pain arising.

How to get women to be less 'self-aware'(sic) and self-obsessed is the question. Turning off those nags on the TV who encourage that behaviour is a good idea, but government needs to do more to challenge the hidden persuaders with facts to de-bunk. The pain and cough 'relief' shelf space at Woolies is far too long, indicating the obvious problem.

I would like to see the primary health care model trialled with practice nurses as the first stage in clinics. The higher trained nurses are more than capable of that and observations can be made and advice given.

I also believe that Queensland's maternal and child welfare clinics (from Bjelke Peterson's era) were very effective and saved money (both sides, government and patient). Particularly where social/contact groups - with a nurse or two sitting in - are part of it. Just provide the space and tea facilities.

Here in WA we already have nurse practitioners seeing patients, and not GPs.
It certainly saves money for the health system.
Unfortunately, we have many Doctors, mainly the older male ones, who feel threatened by losing some of their influence on patients, so it is an uphill battle.

It's nice to see you so concerned about women's health OTB, but I think you will find there are plenty of men out there having their fair share of over the counter medications too. They love their cold and flu meds.
I can't say I have found much difference in the genders in that respect.

Ask any nurse and they will tell you that the biggest problem with pain are young, to not so young, adult males!

Talking of health adverts on TV, I would say the most prolific ones lately, well after 9pm anyway, are the ones for men's sexual health.
It seems they have no problems looking for help in that department!

Suseonline,

You can play sex politics if you like but the thread is about costs to Medicare so it is worth teasing out some already known facts.

There are plenty of research proving considerably higher consumption of analgesics by women in the West. Why that is so is not completely understood. There are adverse effects, so health authorities are right to be concerned.

It would not be surprising at all if similar results were being found with (say) cough mixture and antihistamines. Again, there are adverse effects.

It is also a matter of fact from HIC analyses, that women visit the GP and specialists more often than men and much more than might expected even making allowances for women-only conditions. Similar comments can be made about GP-directed testing of women - far higher than men and women doctors ramp up the testing of women even higher.

Analysis of sick leave credits by employers - the federal public service for instance - have consistently shown that women employees use their leave soon after it becomes available. That hold true where there are no dependents and no pregnancy. Yet men build up their credits, using them only where necessary, for anticipated serious problems later in life, or serious injury.

Thinking about it from a population perspective as Medibank should, what are the medical and non-medical contributors to the differences? Could it be as simple as advertisers targeting women, especially via those women-oriented talk shows on The Box?

never really worked it out too fully however I would of thought that someone assisting their death by smoking would cost less overall than keeping someone in a nursing home for 20 years. Just a thought! Just think of how many knee and hip operations as well as diabetes medicine, blood thinners etc are avoided by the death of smokers.

Talk about sex politics OTB, you should be the leader of that party!
Where are your stats for those assertions OTB?

Using analgesics as directed is very safe actually.
Using cough medicines is useless....they don't work, except maybe from the alcohol helping you sleep.

Women are certainly more pro-health than men, no doubt about that.
As there are still more male doctors around than female, I doubt there is a conspiracy to ignore men's health in the GP surgeries.

Certainly the GPs are on a constant alert to look out for prostate cancer and bowel cancer in men at present, according to all my male relatives and patients.
Have you had yours checked lately OTB?

The only ones who ignore men's health are men themselves.
Certainly there is one good way to save health dollars, and that is to have regular blood tests at least, at the GP surgery. Early detection and prevention is the key.