I really miss those nightly TV news shots of Dr Rudd and Nurse Roxon tramping through the wards of public hospitals dressed in their fetching baby blue scrubs. What has replaced those earnest looks of the Ruddster, patronisingly patting some poor patient trapped in a hospital bed? They were soap opera quality, I’m sure you will agree.
We would then have a nightly announcement, with the Health and Hospital Reform screen behind the nodding contingent – clearly carted around from hospital to hospital by bitter staff members – dreamt up that day by the Ruddster. Nurse Roxon has now told us that she had no idea what he would utter, what thought bubble would emanate from his lips, on any given day. After all, she was only the Health Minister. That’s the way to make policy!
Having rained on Dr Rudd’s parade, Premier Barnett forced a major rethink that didn’t involve the states handing back GST revenue. But what really has been achieved by the Health and Hospital Reform package?
Certainly, in the case of Victoria, the major current news coming from the public hospitals is the significant cuts to bed numbers and elective surgical procedures as the feds decide that they had given Victorian too much money because the ABS was overestimating population growth – supposedly. This has meant that hospital managers have been forced to trim their budgets within the budget year. I thought all this sort of stuff was supposed to be fixed up by the Ruddster.
The core features as I recall involve:
- Hospital networks (these already existed in Victoria so no gains there);
- Medicare Locals – buggered if I know what these really do apart from being souped up General Divisions of GPs, but with boundaries that are different from the hospital networks;
- More federal funding for hospitals – recurrent and capital – based on agreed shares;
- Lots of targets - eg. the 4 hour maximum wait in ER, cuts to elective surgery lists
- Casemix funding for all larger hospitals (again no gain for Victoria because casemix funding has been in place for years. It probably only achieved a one-off gain in efficiency in any case)
- National pricing authority to set prices for casemix (unhappy resemblance to central planning agency);
- GP Superclinics (AHAHAHAHA – an appalling, politically motivated intervention) Where are we in relation to numbers and service delivery?
- More doctors and nurses (actually more than we need).
So any thoughts, Cats? It all looks like the same old, same old mess. Wasteful expenditure, unmet demand, runaway inefficiencies, crazy resource allocation, failure of central planning.
It would be interesting also to see what has happened to the number of health bureaucrats. Remember Gillard’s pledge that the numbers would not increase with the ‘reforms’. Mmmm – there are more than 6000 public servant in the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing and the Commonwealth does not run one hospital. My guess is that the states have not reduced the number of head office health bureaucrats as the hospital networks have been staffed. Any information very welcome.
The ALP cream of the crop. Dumb and dumber.
Tiny Dancer
28 Jan 13 at 8:57 pm
All I know is that revolutions ain’t what they used to be
Rousie
28 Jan 13 at 9:03 pm
Judith, staffing here remains the same – myself, Fatso and Buddy the cats, and numerous Sand Goannas who keep down the rat and mouse population.
Winston Smith
28 Jan 13 at 9:07 pm
Thank goodness rudd was knifed before he got to implement the most groundbreaking health reforms in the history of humanity, evah!
Heaven knows how many public health patients would have ended up deader than a typical Norwegian Blue.
Anyone remember his li’l tete ‘a’ tete* with bimbo keneally?
Good thing there are no misogynists in the layba pardee…
*Video has been “memory holed”, it seems.
Rabz
28 Jan 13 at 9:23 pm
Where is Rudd? I suspect he is about to pop up helping people evacuate out of Norman Park by carrying an suitcase. For the ABC cameras. As for Roxon, I doubt she is at the hairdresser’s. Meeooow!
entropy
28 Jan 13 at 9:40 pm
He all but knocked Comrade Barbie out of the way as he entered the room Rabz and he opened with, literally, “I’m on my East Coast tour …”
I remember it well – President of just 23 million subjects with only two (2) capital cities facing the east coast, so little time to waste that Air Force One was in the departure queue out at Kingsford Smith with its engines running waiting for him … on His East Coast Tour.
She showed how vacant spaced she is by copping it, rather than ringing security and barking “Get this plick out of my building now!”
Mick Gold Coast QLD
28 Jan 13 at 9:57 pm
I can attest to that. I went to one of those clinics quite recently. They are really slow, under manned and don’t take patients at a time which is usually multiple hours before their closing time. I don’t expect super quick service, but the time was super slow. I had my appendix out earlier this week and went to one of those clinics to get it checked out (not knowing what was wrong at that stage with me). I couldn’t go to my private clinic because they were closed. There were only 2 doctors and a few nurses working at the time in the clinic and there were 20 patients waiting to see the doctors. At 6:30pm, they could not take me and it was the same story for the super clinics in the local areas. Considering that it closed at 11pm and this was suppose to be the clinic’s later opening nights, this was not really good enough.
After that, we drove straight to hospital to get it checked out. It was amusing to drive past another planned super clinic where the land has been empty for quite a few years now and the sign that showed a planned super clinic was rusting away with the poster peeling. Not a very well implemented policy.
Andrew
28 Jan 13 at 10:25 pm
Privatise health.
Immediately.
All waste gone overnight.
Aggressive competition on prices.
Eviscerate the AMA and the specialist groups using the Competition Commission to gaol and make destitute any two of the buggers that so much as share a sandwich.
It works in my industry.
It’ll work in health.
The free market is the cheapest and safest market.
WhaleHunt Fun
28 Jan 13 at 10:41 pm
Throw a beanie & a scarf on him & he looks a bit like Wally
Rousie
28 Jan 13 at 10:52 pm
Judith
One small correction —the commonwealth does pay the bills at the Mersey (Latrobe Tasmania) BUT handed it back to the Tasmanian government to administer—who are “enjoying” the extra revenue.
Although I could write a long diatribe ,, my question
WHERE IS THE OPPOSITION HEALTH SPOKESMAN!!!!!
blind freddy
28 Jan 13 at 11:20 pm
Did I imagine this?
Did Tim Mathieson say in public “don’t just rely upon a PSA test. Get a physical digital examination …. but make sure it is a small, female Asian doctor”
Hmmmm ….. I will call out mysoginy wherever I see it!
Leigh Lowe
28 Jan 13 at 11:24 pm
Did Abbott say THAT? Outrageous!
Mick Gold Coast QLD
28 Jan 13 at 11:33 pm
I’d forgotten how absolutely useless KRuddy was. Six wasted years for Australia – nearly a decade if you include Howard’s last term.
No wonder the place is going backwards.
H B Bear
29 Jan 13 at 12:13 am
Is kevin still with us? I hadn’t noticed.
mareeS
29 Jan 13 at 12:30 am
Said it before and I will say it again.
The truly terrifying thing about the Labor “government” is this. When the kitchen cabinet was in full swing I always thought Rudd was an imbecile and Gillard, Swan and the pointless Tanner were doing their best under trying circumstances.
Subsequent events have shown Rudd was actually the brains in the room. It makes me shudder.
Mark
29 Jan 13 at 12:53 am
Judith. Rather than nit picking about the particular failures in health (or education or public transport or infrastructure or energy or water or broadcasting etc), what is really required is a high level discussion of why central planning doesn’t work and is an inferior method of delivering services than markets.
Mises and Hayek would be a good place to start. Even though they were focusing on all round planning, the problems they highlighted apply to all forms of government delivery.
The key point to make is that it doesn’t matter who is in power – Liberal or Labor – either Party can deliver services better than markets. The only way to ‘fix health’ – as Krudd promised he would – is to privatise health. The same goes for fixing education, public transport, infrastructure, energy, water, broadcasting etc. We all lose out when government takes over the resposibility for providing these services.
johno
29 Jan 13 at 7:22 am
On a serious note, what exactly is the role of the federal government in health? I can’t really think of a single productive outcome for having the feds involved in health.
Nationwide immunization would be important but I am sure the states could come to some agreement on their own, other than that a independent watchdog for collecting and reporting transparent health results to compare between the states, and obviously funding.
I wonder how many beds can be funded by a cut to the 6000 public servant salaries?
Adam Diver
29 Jan 13 at 7:33 am
This is the perfect opportunity for Red Ted to get rid of any number of green money burners and direct that money into health.
Instead of cutting beds, staff and surgeries, how about cutting renewable rebates and all subsidies. Sure to save a lot that could be used in health. And best of all, Red can blame the Fed govt for cutting health funding.
Of course, this does nothing to get rid of the waste in the system, inefficiences etc, but IMO it is too good an opportunity to waste. Maintain health (always a winner) and get rid of green waste at the same time (sure to be a winner).
dianeh
29 Jan 13 at 8:05 am
People I know in the health business generally agree that the top-heavy structures are a primary contributor to waste and ineffectiveness. This has been known for a long time, as immortalised in Yes Minister.
blogstrop
29 Jan 13 at 8:26 am
Perhaps they have decided to give the Slapper’s Official Live-in Root a chance.Now that he’s offering Prostate advice he’s ready for the role if they can just get him to drop his sexist and racist jokes.
Lew
29 Jan 13 at 8:29 am
How about better demand management of staff? If hospitals needs more staff, even considering the expanding services, it is a clear sign of disfunction.
Efficiency gains can be made by effective rostering and options to manage staff when sickness/unexpected leave occurs. One should be suspicious of anyone who claims they have “solved” that problem.
Casemix provides better funding outcomes, but in a period where coalition governments dominate at the state level (i.e. the ballooning of public service budgets is slowed), disfunctional effects will result as hospitals target what they believe are the highest yield patients.
Token
29 Jan 13 at 8:32 am
It would be valuable to have a discussion that reviews the best way to handle critical services which most of the public would expect to be close to free (ER & other critical care, etc) and where the line should be drawn whereby most people contribute to health services beyond that point.
Token
29 Jan 13 at 8:37 am
LOL at Judith chipping Rudd for stunts, with Abbott currently on week one of Cirque du Stunty 2013. At least Rudd announced things at his stunts, Abbott is trying desperately hard to get maximum media coverage without saying anything at all re policy.
m0nty
29 Jan 13 at 9:13 am
The keywords there are “at least”, its about the most positive thing left to say about the current government. “at least we are not as bad as greece”, “at least we got the carbon tax through”, “at least we tried”, “at least 1 premise has NBN services”, “at least we may save one life with draconian laws”, “at least we did what we thought was right”, “at least we saved our cows from inhumane slaughter”, “at least we didn’t go into recession”, “at least we got some school halls and some insulated houses”
Well I will say this about Abbott and the LNP, at least its not Labor.
Adam Diver
29 Jan 13 at 9:33 am
Fancy a politician trying to get media coverage! What will they try next?
Governing by press release?
I’ve already covered the “new policy” meme elsewhere.
Time for some new ideas yourself, Cirque Du Monty.
blogstrop
29 Jan 13 at 9:33 am
In my affluent suburb the private hospital emergency department charges a substantial fee to its patients yet is as crowded as a public hospital most nights. It’s one thing to have a service that is offered free of charge in an emergency to people that cannot afford to pay, but increasingly for the middle class I foresee people choosing a paid service if it is thought to be worth the cost.
rob
29 Jan 13 at 9:33 am
Here is Dr Rudd. Completely inept.
Black Ball
29 Jan 13 at 9:41 am
Hey m0nty
Suck on them eggs big fella!
Huckleberry Chunkwot
29 Jan 13 at 9:44 am
Abbot is a lifesaver and a RFS firefighter.
Rudd “helped” a burly men carry someone else who fainted out of church. Rudd has about 1 kg of load, judging by how he’s hanging on the pant inseam and guy’s shoe.
He also reckons he lived in a car and is a self made man. His wife being wealthy is just coincidental.
What a hero monty.
You really ought to build a shrine to the perennial fuckwit.
.
29 Jan 13 at 9:45 am
Adam D,
States run immunization programs, although QLD has stopped free immunization of children. However, it is virtually useless as you can opt out of having your kid immunized if you are a conscientious objector. you just fill out a one page form.
A few people in health that I know are a little worried as a lot of immigrants are lobbing here and not getting immunised hence the increase of 2000 people in QLD alone last year getting whooping cough.
Dan
29 Jan 13 at 9:56 am
True, Monty
Kevni certainly had a wonderful media presence as PM, that’s for sure, but we’ll never how much substance there was to him. I don’t think Ms Gillard will be able to kill off the legend somehow by election day, no matter how much wasteful handouts she gives.
candy
29 Jan 13 at 9:57 am
So many people do not realise that the free service comes at a cost, time spent waiting in pain as they wait for the triage to allow treatment.
Consider the fact that the parent who is looking for treatment for a child is competing with people who actively self harm and then demand assistance (the junkies and people getting hurt raging on alcohol).
This has to be the future. Anyone who has means will want to be able to get priority service.
It is why I noted “close to free”.
Token
29 Jan 13 at 10:01 am
@ Dan,
I agree with the holes in immunization program at present, but think a nationwide schedule of immunization would serve better that several different programs.
The current opt-outs of immunization is a whole different issue and an example of the more educated we become, the dumber we become.
Adam Diver
29 Jan 13 at 11:01 am