The Bankrupt Australian Health System

The health system in Australia is reaching crisis point. Planning for the future is in chaos, Nurses and Doctors are reaching over-supply and the cost of health care is exploding. The introduction of a free system, where the government pays all the bills, is unsustainable.

We have high concentrations of doctors in city areas and insufficient numbers in rural areas. Because of lack of locally trained doctors, up to 40% of our medical workforce is foreign trained and these foreign graduates mainly staff our country hospitals.

The waiting lists for elective surgery are getting longer every year. In Victoria, for the year 2012, Patient waiting times for the two commonest surgical specialties were: General surgery 41-46 days and Orthopaedic surgery 63-76 days.

The health system presently supports a massive insurance and legal industry not to mention a host of unnecessary bureaucrats.

The problems involve the three main players in the system – Politicians, bureaucrats and doctors. Regrettably, very few people are aware of the forces outside their own field of expertise and so nobody has an overall idea of what to do.
This book examines the overall health system and proposes some suggestions for its rescue.