I work in a non-medical role in a hospital. Yesterday, many staff at the hospital had to work double shifts (8am-midnight) to care for the patients due to lack of staff. This is illegal, but the hospital has NO choice. On one ward there was two registered nurses and two enrolled nurses looking after 39 patients. Constantly there is mistakes in regards to medication. How many cause injury and/or discomfort to patients?, I have no idea. I read an article online a while ago about the lack of accountability hospital staff would take in regards to mistakes...do you blame them?.

I would suggest avoiding hospital at all costs...unless you have no choice. Educate yourself on your treatment, drugs and procedures in relation to your care. If you can't do it yourself, get someone to keep an eye on what drugs are being administered and make sure the drugs are beening given in the correct quantities...learn fast, about everything.

Forget who is to blame, what can be done about it?.

StG
very Good advise.
I know! I will get my head bitten off but I am sick of seeing old and frail people waiting for hours while new people to the Gold Coast push in with their diseases they bring with them from overseas.
We have so many students attending uni and migrants and visitors the LOCALS can not get served.

For God sake open a hospital for locals ONLY and look after OUR sick and frail tax payers FIRST.
Enough iS Enough.

St
Good Comment
I am sick of seeing the aged and frail kept waiting for hours while migrants get served first. they bring nearly all the diseases from their country and its our elderly and very young who suffer.
Open some hospitals for locals only so our aged and can get the care they deserve.

ST G there go stable debate! hospitals for locals only! bringing disease in from over seas?
Yes maybe that part is true but surely we need better ways to treat every one who is ill?
The authors post as it comes from some one who knows is giving us one answer of the hundreds we need.
Do not use hospitals as the first and only answer, far too many just go so they have some human contact.
We need 24 hours medical centers along side every hospital.
We must train more doctors and nurses.
We need more beds not less.
We need to care more about those who are ill and those who care for them.

P.A.L.E ~ Care based on race is something I'm not going to even touch. There's so much wrong with that comment. Some keys words from my thoughts about it; Nazi, hypocratic oath, humanity.

Belly ~ Like I said, I'm not in a medical role, but from what I've seen the Australian health care system isn't at the sharp end. Definitely we couldn't compare it against third world health care but it isn't stepping forward in leaps and bounds. It seems that private health care are having MAJOR dramas with staff as well as public so that is obviously the first place the government ABSOLUTELY HAS to address...but the thing is...they know this, what are they doing about it?.

A very good debate took place in a now gone thread on this subject some years ago.
I was part of it and it extended to many posts over some weeks, it never found answers we could use right now to fix it.
If such answers did exist even the worst politicians would surely implement them now?
However money is an issue, how much more can we squeeze out of our limited tax payers?
I truly think an out of hospital medical service 24/7 that truly sends all who need help other than what they can give to hospital is a start, we over use hospitals.
In fairness to pale, I hope she meant ,as south east Queenslanders seem to, that we tourists while spending money on the Gold coast, may be even settling there one day, are unwanted in hospitals ext.
Not in our car park, our restaurant ,our shopping center ext.
However if while visiting our southern city's and falling ill?
You could hardly see us placing them on the footpath to die can you?
We Australians must get informed about our national tax income, it is less than one city in say England or America.
We can do much better in health and so much more but it will cost us.

Std
No Care based on a fair go is more like it. Why should our elderly be kept waiting and waiting while people from South push in.
I mean it.
The Gold Coast is the capital! of retirment. There for we have about six times the numbers of elderly and we are swammped with tree change people and migrants.
We have fifteen hundred people arriving EACH WEEK and! Staying.
Our Dear old Seniors CAN NOT get care.
These would be the ones that worked ALL their lives to pay taxes to make hospital available.
no Old and locals first sorry.
Wheres your manners and respect for the elderly In Australia?
WHY SHOULD an Australian Elderly person die because somebody fresh off a boat has pushed in.
Belly said have centers next to the hospitals
Good idea.
One for locals and one for new arrivals and overseas uni students.\
Would help also to keep some of the diseases from spreading through to the locals.
Such as we had a TB case at the Gold Coast hospital a few months ago and this awful virus which they know comes into Australia from overeas.
Nothing racist about that. Its a fact.
Its discusting our! own eldrly people are pushed aside and often die because Drs are busy with visitors.
It makes my blood boil.

PALE, dont rant about hospital availability for the elderly when you should be focussed on why there arent enough nursing homes. So many elderly are in hospital when they should be in a home (getting the level of care taht they need) that it really is beyond a joke.

Country Girl

When people take a stroke or a heart attack they need a Dr not a nursing home.
This is whats wrong with todays world. People actually think if your old your times up.

Your common sense ought to tell you as well we need less nursing homes and MORE in home care.

Try taking the care packages off the Church Based organisations and put that same funding direct into supporting in home care.

The tax payer provides thirty dollars a day for in home care to support the aged and disabled to stay in their own home.

Added to that there is another thirty to fity dollars a week the client pays.

The Federal Government send that to the State governments who SWANDER IT.

Instead of giving it to the States give it to the dial an angles or to the client or clients family.

If you do that you have either TWO part time jobs for a carer[ which provides income] and can be run through the carers department of centerlink.
That gives a higher quality of care and you need to build LESS nursing homes instead of more.
As for our elderly not needing a hospital I can assure you they need more DR attention not LESS.

Try the gold Coast hospital on a Saturday night and you will see the gangs of st fights and their SELF inflicted fights through grog and drugs alone side the migrants the uni students flood the hospital and our elderly left to last who require attention.
Its a discrace.
Thats another thing. If these uni students from overseas have parents who can pay thousands in advance for their schooling- WHY hasnt the Government MADE them pay for PRIVATE Health??
I repeat Bellys idea of centers next door to hospitals is a good one.

Pale please understand as we post we get the right to be heard and others get the right to have an opinion about us.
I like a laugh, and in my part of NSW it is said you must be born here or forever ,yes even after 40 years you will be ^ from away^.
Not normal for a small town, most welcome you with open arms, but some here are very much in a back water.
See those from away, run the stalls, the music days, all that is worth while.
Now the newcomers, I have only been here 25 years are the only reason the villages continue to exist.
I care not from what country or place a sick person comes.
But I care that any Australian would.
Let me assure you this southerner will not contaminate your state.
I, you, we all can learn from this thread, can it be that we care less for those from away than our selfs?

healthcare & hospitals do not necessarily have much in common, well at least in north qld from my experience. just like eductation, health too has become a career facility for useless to society bureaucrats. I want to stress that the medical personnel do an excellent job under almost impossible conditions. whenever a good doctor or nurse attempts to introduce some sanity into this lost system they invariably get kicked out because they're seen as a threat to the careers of bureaucrats. the misuse of public money is nothing short of phenomenal and at least in my experienc appears to be condoned by the very authorities who are charged with upholding the integrity & code of conduct etc. of government departments. The CMC for example asks Qld Health to investigates itself and, naturally enough no misconduct is found. I personally find that not even a change of government can stamp out the incompetence & waste of public money in Qld Health. Qld Health needs to be abolished & start from afresh. If anyone knows of a good investigative journalist then send him to work around far north Qld.

PALE, I agree that if someone has a stroke or heart attack the best place for the is hopital. However at least in NSW the hospitals are packed with the elderly that are too sick/frail to live at home, but cant get a nursing home bed. Your solution is really only good for those that require light care. For the elderly that require high-level care a nursing home of the appropriate care level is generally the best place for them. This is particularly the case where they have an elderly partner who might be capable of taking care of themselves, but shouldering full time care even with a nurse looking in once a day is a very heavy burden. Have you tried caring for a frail dementia patient (just as an example)?

As of today the QLD transplant team is in tatters. The surgeon and a specialist quit to leave transplants being moved to NSW for the time being. Someone needs lynching!. Peter Beattie would be a good start.

My partner has had a double lung transplant, so we know the team well. At some stage she'll be up for listing again. This needs to be fixed, along with the rest of the health system fu*ken quick sticks.

belly
I was born in NSW - counrt town, Kempesy.
Try living on the gold Coast where you are over run with tourists and uni student and new comers who all use public health instead of private health.
Try being a local aged person who is really ill but cant get seen for the flood of people who really could go private but suck the life out of our sytem our state and our country.
Try watching your elderly parent suffer and die because they cant get medical attention.
Then judge me.
Remember the hospitals are run by the States.
QLD has your Mikly Bar Kid. He might like to start with MAKING those who can afford it go private?? Such as overseas uni students and high income earners tourists etc
QLD State hospitals are in a mess.
Now tell me you want him to run the country again.
Labour cant run QLD states biz let alone anything else.
Why dont you move up here to be closer to your hero then make a comment from the experince we locals have.
umm

Pale I am no teenager, and live not that far from your birth place.
Now consider some home truths without your biases.
Queenslanders elected this government, in fact rejected all others returning this government.
You once had Australia's best health care system.
Can you truly say locals are the only people who should use your public health?
Are you aware how much NSW and VIC has paqid in tax that is redirected to QLD?
Can you wish me to believe A conservative government has the answers to our nations dreadful health problems?
Are you aware how bad it is to live in America if you are unwell?
It will not be easy to fix health problems, but if it requires ideas like yours selective care based on race or state then humanity doe not deserve better.
Health must become a national system one national standard one set of expectations for the sick and a national way of paying for it.
Private hospitals? if so many did not seak profit from health care we may just remember it should be a human right.
If it was just the ALP who bought this on QLD I would not vote for them myself can you truly think one single party in one state is the problem? a problem the world shares?

Stg, i agree that hospitals are in a bad state.
In NSW in the 1970s and 1980s, we had the best health systems in the world. The hospitals were run by a Board, at the local level, the person in charge was a Medical Officer.
Since the introduction of Fiscal Managers having power in hospitals, it has been all down hill. The introduction of area health administrators who are only interested in budgets has also brought the health facilities to their knees.
We live in a supposed rich country, and health services should be free for everyone. Howard in giving 2 billion dollars to the private sector every year, has virtually robbed the public hospitals of federal money. For those who claim that the States are responsible for health services, think again. Howard removed the previous funding for dental health, in the early days of his coming to office.
The essential basic for the running of any hospital is infection control, fiscal managers are not appropriate for the health of patients, in any hospital.
I was a nurse for most of my working life and i have seen the best and worst of care for people in hospitals. When nursing training was moved to universities, it saved a lot of money for governments, but it has brought about the current shortage of nurses and the increased errors occurring in hospitals, but the blame also has to be laid on how hospitals are managed.
It does not matter which major party we vote for, whether state or federal, health services will never be the priority it was decades ago. Australia today is under the influence of business first governments, and the people seem to be accepting this state of affairs. Be careful who you vote for especially in the Senate.

Belly

We get 1500 people a week arriving and staying. Thats another thing the State labour Government need to do- Close the boarders to people relocating here. At least until we can fix the water problem.

Now if the Labour Federal Government came up with a few ideas as policys I might even look ast them.

Policys which make it law ALL people on welfare who receive the 30 per cent rebate have a few extra dollars taken out before they get their money which is paid into a private health care.
Come on belly - They can go to the pub and smoke.
We all must take some resonsibilty for our own health.

Up here there is a housing commission area at Labrador.
We employ a wonderful NZ lady at times to play the piano for different functions.
She said shes the only one there who speaks English.
The WHOLE of the area is non English speaking.
So we went there and took a few people who spoke different lingo.
When we asked how long they had waited for their units the answers were varried.
However it was NOTHING like the ten year wait most of the locals are on.
Your kidding yourself if you think the elderly get bETTER care in a nursing home.
They are MUCH better off getting one on one attention divided between two carers or more.
Nursing homes often have one person for thirty or fity people.
Leave the Elderly in their own homes and increase the home help.

PALE, you are ranting again. This time about new arrivals to the Gold Coast. But you said yourself that you come from Kempsey, so by definition are one of those new arrivals. Bad case of the pot calling the kettle black.....

sig
realisticaly theres no other way than to give people the medical attention as soon as possible
the longer people wait the more it costs tax payers anyway, as return trips for interim medical attention and follow ups still costs thousands as we all wait in line.
Im wondering if others like myself have watched their subsidised medical care / bills double in cost as they make regular return trips to the GP to be refered to specialists / when that simple operation would have initially cost a half of the $ of care that is stacked up by the time they recieve the proper medical attention
so who wins
the tax payer or the patient
no one
on top of this some injuries heal better if attended to in the early stages
by dragging out the waiting time its a catch 22
pretty stupid hey
whomever these patients happen to be
and whatever age
sooner is in my mind the cheaper option when it comes to medical costs
if care is left too long you might all be paying for wheel-chairs / taxies (special subsidised) medications AND pensions
so winge all you like, the bill just accumulates

You make a good point mariah. Perhaps during these boom times with large budget surpluses, we could be putting aside trust funds to help provide better funding for when the boom times run out down the track. The education fund announced in the last Budget is a good start - no reason the same cant apply to Health too.

Country Girl.
Hospitals come under States.
States dont have surpluses. They have huge debts. I put four years of research into the in home care for the elderly and produced figures to the Federal Government.

From there the advisor acted on several of the reports and launched an investigation which eventually at least resulted in some changes for the better.

Even in a high care home your looking at a small number staff being in charge of thirty or more people.

What is clear to me is although you complain about the elderly taking the beds in hospitals you have no counter plan to fix the problem.

Yes I was born in Kempsey and my family had to relocate when my brother was given only four days to live.
What would you suggest our family did under those circumstances.Stay there?
I have been here over thirty years so the Gold Coast is home.

Unlike you I have a deep concern and regard for our Eldery and prefer to find alternatives for them rather than snipe because they are in a hospital bed.

You might feel differently one day when you are an elderly person in the same postion as those you complain about now.
Yep I do think Australian Elderly People should come first
Absolutley.
Its called respect

You misunderstand me badly PALE. I watched my aunts nurse my grandmother through dementia - ended up so bad that all she could do was curl up in a chair, cross her arms over herself and rock and and forth sobbing. They nursed her for 14 years (80-94), with a few short breaks in nursing homes. Why my aunts and not my father? he was a single parents with 3 kids, and trying to work fulltime. He supported with money where he could, but not in the position to take on actual care himself. So yes, I have some idea what its like, and have a great appreciation for our elderly. Some friends are up to 50 years older than me, and I value their friendship greatly.

Home care is the best answer, but given that we cant even fund enough nursing home bed, full home care is a pipe-dream for most.

Yes, healthcare is a state responsibility, but largely funded by federal grants (like education). Federal surpluses can easily be put into trust for the earnings to be used by the states.

Nursing homes have staff training to look after the elderly. Hospitals have staff trained to look after the very sick and dying. Ratio's appear to be much the same. Most nursing home staff I have had anything to do with appear much more compassionate than nursing staff (one aunt was a local aged care co-ordinator, so again I have a little inside perspective on this).

Finally, I live in an area where you are not considered local unless you were born there. many families local history stretches back 150 years. So 30 years is pie in the sky. If you moved there, dont snipe at others who have/do. bad case of the pot calling the kettle black!

My pet hate regarding wasted medical resources is the amount of medicare funded doctor consultations are used solely to get medical certificates to satisfy paranoid or lazy employers. Whether because of a cold, flu, injury or other ailment, a great many employers demand employees produce medical certificates for every day they miss. They do so as a matter of policy, even when the superviser has seen that the employee is sick. Some doctors will write a certificate for only a day or so and then invite you back again (milking the system). On most occasions there's no medical reason for the consult and no treatment is warranted.

I have no idea how much, but I'll bet a great deal of money could be saved by simply requiring employers to pay for such consults, in which case they'd only request them on occassions when they have reason to be suspicious. The current system is just a complete waste of public funds and the country's medical resources.

My 10c whinge.

County Girl
Its clear you have done little research into funding for in home care.
Let me make it simple for you.
The tax payer funds around fourteen hours a week. Funds are sent to the States.
QLD ACAT[ QLD Government refer packages to private providers which are nornally Church Based organisations.
The average service is about three hours a week and max is six hours .
Often [ very often] its one and a half hours.

Thats around ten hours a week funding thats being waisted.
Thats States lack of organisation and of course the Churches have their costs.

These packages or contracts are held over the heads of wanting providers in the form of votes.

Now if you take that fourteen hours a week per person and put it direct into in home care you have at least two part time carers working one on one.
It takes far more than that to build new homes staff fund them and keep up repairs and maintance.

If you allowed family or carers and clients to employ two part time staff to assist you - say up to seven hundred and fitfy a week.

This money could also go direct to a agent of the client and family choice, ie Dial an Angel.

Or two carers at $350.00 a week. [ More employment and more taxes being paid.
Many people also have family that are happy to help out but cant do it full time.

Re 30 old shift. While I still have interests in Kempsey I can assure you thirty years ago the Gold Coast needed new business projects.
Not so now.
We are so short of water and Drs and medical staff its pushing the locals out the back door.
] " Especially our elderly'
Thats not right.

Kalin, couldnt agree more. Most country towns in particular are stretched to capacity with lack of doctors, the last thing they need is visits by people with colds who need medical certs for work. If an employer cant tell an employee is sick, they are idiots. If its not an obvious illness, then fine, but a cold or the flu is as plain as the nose on your face (and its not like the doctor can do anything for you - rest and fluids). My supervisor used to send me home ("get out of here and use up your sick days - dont hang around and give it to me"), but then HR would require a doctors cert if more than 2 days taken. Now they need one if more than 1 day taken. Last time I needed time off, I couldnt get into a doctor - work ended up still paying my a leave day because it was so bloody obvious. A small victory.

PALE, perhaps its tme you considered moving again if you are dissatisfied with where you live now. Doctors are hard to get in this town, but not too much trouble getting a hospital bed if needed, and I have never seen more than 3 people in the emergency ward (and with a toddler I have had a few visits at night and on weekends - raging fevers, ear infections and the like).

Kalwin
There is a new RN system up here the Government set up to try to take some pf the preshure off the public hospitals because we have an extra six thousand a month arriving to live here.
Perhaps you could suggest that be put into place where you are.
Its all done by phone and quite frankly their not much good for anything else anyway. Why not speak to the boss about it and suggest they extend the service to video link up with use of faxes to supply certificates.
I understand your frustration but the counter argument would have to be the millions who take a sick a after a big football game or heavy night out or because surfs up.
Its cost this country millions.
We do also have a system where by you can call a Dr to your home who will bulk bill you.
Its all weekends and after hours between 5pm and 8am.
Something like that in your area my also help.
Country girl you are most fortunate to only bump into three other patients at your emergency surgery.
People up here now wait anything up to twelve hours - even more.
The poor staff are under enormous preshure.

It must have been difficult having a single Dad and your Aunts being so busy with Gran.
A lessor person might grow up resenting older people taking up peoples time or a hospital bed.
The Federal Government are looking into it and keen to start it on the Gold Coast as a trial given the high number of senior cizs who come up here to retire.
That frees up more hospital beds and saves millions being waisted building homes and trying to keep their up keep.
It doesnt mean however that they should wait twelve hours to see a Dr.
It also doesnt mean that the ITC wards should be told only to take young people either.
Thats the bottom line here

PAELIF,

Although people taking sickies when they are not sick does cost the economy a great deal of money, the reality is that having the current system simply exacerbates the cost by making the government cough up $50 or so (whatever the medicare cost of gp consults is) for every absence, with highly debatable deterrent effect. Think about it.

I've never heard of a gp turning a patient away on the basis they didn't believe they were sick. If someone comes into their surgery and says they have a migraine or stomach cramps, or back pain, doctors still give them a certificate. They can no more verify the truth of these patient's assertions than anyone else, so why make a highly skilled and extremely expensive worker, like a doctor, deal with such administrative policing.

Moreover such patients are often bread and butter for some practices. Expecting medical practices to turn away 'regular' customers because they're abusing the system, is like expecting bottle shops to turn away alcoholics. $ $ $

I don't know how much money is being wasted this way but I'm betting its a lot based on my own anecdotal experience. I'm 38 and don't go to the doctor's often, but I suspect at least 50% of the occasions I've been to a doctor in the last 20 years have been when I've been down with a cold or flu and have had to get a medical certificate.

Pretty quickly I've worked out I've got the flu/cold and I've known the doctors can do nothing for me, and that I should stay in bed, take my aspirins and vitamin C and sweat it out. Unfortunately, my empoyer (usually corporate) invariably requires, as a matter of policy, a medical certificate. I live in Sydney, but finding a medical practitioner on short notice, & within walking distance (I don't have a car) has often proven impossible. Half my 'day off' gets spent locating and attending a doctors surgery.

Utter madness.

Kalin1
Join a private health fund if you are not already a member and call a Dr to your house.
You get most of it back anyway.

When a person is too sick to work they are too sick to be up and about normally , full stop.
I mean you have to be really sick to take time off work. Dont you?
I am SURE your boss would understand if you said you were too ill to go to a Dr.
Then again I guess when people are that ill they need a Dr.
Oh dear what a terribly situtation for you
What about this for an idea?
Do you have any family that could drive you to a DR?
What about a friend or Neighbour? Can you form a understanding with others from your work?
You could then take it in turns. Perhaps ring one another the night before.
There is a number you can call to register for transport. Also you can register for half price cabs if your ill and cant afford a cab.
Do you have to do this often?

Yes I agree all Drs are very busy as are hospitals and it would be criminal to misuse a Drs time.
I guess it must be real inconveient for those people who used to just pull a sickie at the Bosses expense as well.
I mean by the time [as you said] a person had to attend a Drs Surgery to get a certificate it would defeat the purpose anyway wouldnt it.
They would really be able to set their times to meet at the beach for a wave or anything.
I guess the Government have had to add up the cost of the certificates as against the bosses costs.
I think its called
Check Mate

PALEIF,

Aparently you don't have to be very sick to miss work, otherwise why do Doctor's never refuse medical certificates.

As to your theory that you are SURE my boss would understand, I'm guessing you haven't worked in many large corporations. Most managers don't have authority to 'understand' their underlings problems but are obliged to implement company policy without fear or favour. If you don't comply with the company's policy of producing medical certificates for days off, your pay is docked. This situation isn't unique, its typical of many large corporations and I'd guess most government departments too.

Your statement "I guess the Government have had to add up the cost of the certificates as against the bosses costs." makes me ask why should government be using it's medical services and tax dollars to provide what is basically a businesses cost. I accept there are economic arguments in favour of it, but the reality seems to be that the effect is so small it does not warrant the cost.

If it was something businesses had to pay for they would look at the cost effectiveness of the system. As it stands, because they have no interest in the cost of the system, businesses don't worry that it costs the tax payer $100 to save every $10 in deterred bludging. Yes I made those figures up, but I suspect they are in the ball park.

Oh, and I am in private health cover, but your idea of home visits and then referring it to the insurer is just silly. How economically stupid would it be to make a private insurer pay $200 for a home visit just to get a medical certificate. The insurer may 'refund me' but that $200 doesn't come from thin air, it comes from the public purse in the form of premiums.

Your concern with stopping bludging workers whilst recommending such abuse of insurance companies is hypocritical. Please think again.

Kalin1
People pulling sickies has cost small biz and corps billions.
I do not think its unreasonable to be asked to prove you were not just in the mood for a day off at the expense of others which at the end comes from the tax payer working mate.

I can assure you drs DO refuse to give certificates if they do not believe the persons sick.

People will always try to find a way to break down laws that safe gaurd others.
Those laws were put in place to protect your work mates being ripped off along with the owners of the biz.

I note you have not answered my questions.
Ie isnt there somebody who can drive you to a Dr?
The bottom line to me is this-
You said you walked around all dr looking for a Dr?
Surley you must know whwe where your dr is/
All your concern for the tax payers dollar and saving visits for others is touching.
However I suspect it really gets up your nose having to produce a certificate because - in your own words wondering around half the day looking for a Dr and paying for a visit wasnt what you had in mind.
If you put it that way - Then it would seem the system is working well and producing the results it was intended to.
If a bosss vaules the staff member he often goes beyond all expectations to assist that person if they are really sick.
Good honest staff are hard to find and very very much in advance in their oportunitys to demand better conditions.
May I suggest it is you who should think again.

Kalin, I understand where you are coming from. You would be better off reporting to work so that the HR department could see that you are sick, rather than finding a doctor who will make an assessment based on the same thing - do you look sick. PALE, in my town to get a doctors appointment, you have to line up outside the surgery at 7.30am - the doors open at 8 and the first x number of people through to door get an appointment. It is not in anyone's interests to have a person with the cold/flu (which no medication can be given ofr) lining up in sub-zero conditions on a winters morning. It will only serve to extend the life of the illness, and thereby cost the employer more in lost time.

Yes, I agree PALE, that you have to be very sick not to be ABLE to work. But bear in mind that even a light illness can greatly reduce your productive capacity. Therefore a number of small business employers have been able to reach the logical conclusion that it is better to lose a whole day of production for one person (who COULD work if push came to shove), than lose 20% capacity of the other 10 workers, assuming that the illness is infectious. Where I work a sick person with impaired judgement can lose the business a lot more than 1 days production. Eg I produce around $1500/day value. In a tiny 5 mins, I could make a mistake that would cost the business 100 times that. Thus, better that I take a day to recover fully, than to take a risk

PALE, why would I resent old people due to my grandmothers illness? You a quite a strange person! To the contrary, I know that she was best looked after at home, then next best in a high care nursing home. Her few trips to hospital nearly killed her. Yes, IC units should not be just for the young. And neither should hospital care IF ITS NEEDED. Having older people in hospitals when they dont require hospitalisation is putting additional strain on facilities that are already stretched to breaking point.

Perhaps you should advertise to retirees not to come to QLD to retire, as the medical facilities arent there. By your own definition they are newcomers that are eating up facilities for the locals.

Thanks for the even handed comments Country Gal. PALE really annoyed me with that last post of his/hers, so patronising.

Faked sickies may cost businesses lots of money. So does shop lifting or employee theft. Does anyone think it would be reasonable if every single customer was interrogated by the police to confirm they weren't a shop lifter? Should all employees be routinely grilled by the police to confirm they aren't stealing from their bosses?

Of course not. So why is it ok to put doctors in the role of police officers and make them interrogate EVERY SINGLE SICK PERSON just to confirm they aren't faking it? By all means do so once some suspicion is aroused, but to do it routinely EVERY time someone is sick is a dumb waste of resources.

PALE,

You said: "However I suspect it really gets up your nose having to produce a certificate because - in your own words wondering around half the day looking for a Dr and paying for a visit wasnt what you had in mind."

You are either suggesting I shouldn't be allowed to stay in bed when I'm sick (improbable), or are implying I wasn't sick and was just hoping to have a more 'fun' day than spending it looking for a medical certificate? Can you explain why you reached that conclusion?

"If you put it that way - Then it would seem the system is working well and producing the results it was intended to."

So I take it you support a system that stops genuinely sick employees from resting in bed when they're sick, just to stop a small % of fakers from having a 'fun' day off undeserved.

I assume you'd similarly support a system which stops sick elderly people from seeing the doctor just to stop those lonely elderly people, who "fake it" just to have someone to talk to? Don't believe that goes on? Ask your GP next time and see what he says.