Home > Healthcare–Solutions–Australia > Crisis

Crisis in Healthcare System

June 17, 2006

A new state of the art hospital for Bundaberg was yesterday promised by the coalition as a raft of health-related measures expected to be traded by the two sides of politics ahead of September 9 election.

Dr Flegg, also the Coalitions health spokesperson, said the doctor shortage at the centre of the crisis was largely due to maladministration and poor facilities. "There are plenty of doctors around; it is just that the maladministration has caused a massive exodus from the system" he said "and until you change that culture then you have no hope of reversing it".

Yet Revive Group who has been engaged in discussions with QLD Health about an employee assist program and have been told that an employee wellbeing program to assist in attracting and retaining employees is not a priority for another 12 months.

There is speculation that the salaries provided at QLD health are amongst the highest in QLD. If they focused on developing positive health environment for staff that wouldn't have such a problem attracting and retaining staff and paying ridiculous salaries to attract people. Yet QLD Health claims that their primary strategy intent is to promote an environment for healthier staff.

Health funding increases have gone in salaries rather then longer-term prevention strategies. Yet research shows that money is ninth on the list of 10 things that high performing people point to as motivating them.

Beryl Crosby, the head of the support group for Dr Patel's former patients, questioned the need for a new hospital "Why spend so much money on a new building to house the same problems" Ms Crosby Said.

QLD Health should be addressing the internal staff and low morale issues and looking at longer term innovative ways of delivering health services. Simply providing more doctors, more nurses, more beds and more money is unlikely to be sustainable.

A significant proportion of the disease burden is preventable. We are not trying hard enough to ward off the future epidemic of ill-health being prepared by poor nutrition and exercise habits in conjunction with excessive levels of alcohol and cigarette consumption.

With 62% of men and 45% of women considered overweight or obese (ABS National Health Survey), Queensland is above the average on a number of worrying characteristics, including smoking, risky drinking, lack of exercise and obesity.

The sustainability of the health system will depend ultimately on putting the onus back on the individual to take action in preventing the onset of chronic illness and providing education, resources, support and incentives to encourage involvement in programs such as Matria Wellcare to identify health risks and effect lifestyle and behavioral changes.

We need to move away from curative to preventative models. Lifestyle and environmental factors need to be taken into account, not simply the quality of medical services. The idea is that people should have access to good quality public health services close to where they live such that they can prevent the onset of disease by early intervention, rather than continuing to live in unhealthy ways and end up in hospital at a later stage.

The crisis in the health system is also a crisis in the western lifestyle. If governments do not focus on assisting individuals to change unhealthy lifestyle habits and take better care of themselves to and provide prevention, no health system of the future, no matter how well resourced will be able to cope with the ongoing build-up of chronic disease and illness.