I’ve heard it said in political circles that women my age and older care fairly passionately about the health system, as we are finally exposed to it, having not normally needed to access hospitals much during our late teens and twenties.  How true this is.  And I am saying this, not because I have children, which is more common, but because my family has had something of an annus horibus with respect to health.  I’ve torn my calf muscle, my grandfather is finally too frail to look after himself and another close family member was diagnosed with a terminal illness.  I have to say overall that despite the bad press and the horror stories from both the press and my personal circle, we seem to have a good system here in Queensland, but there is much need for improvement.  When you’re dealing with sick people and their families, you really can not do enough for their comfort and information.

My first big gripe is actually our private health care system.  Private hospital costs are fairly well covered by private health care and Medicare still covers much of it.  But private health insurers really are selling us short by not covering doctors fees at all or the fee to be admitted to Emergency in a private hospital.  I was several hundreds of dollars out of pocket last year when I had surgery – my doctor charging almost twice the Medicare fee and only 75% of anaesthetic costs ever covered between Medicare and private health.  My terminally ill relative also decided to take a chance on going private with treatment for a bit this year after getting a wee bit fed up with the public hospital, and is still paying off the charges – pretty rich for someone who is on 75% of their income.

Coordination of treatment seems to go by the wayside when someone is being treated by a team rather than just one doctor as has been the case with both my relatives, and this was also the experience of a close friend of mine who had a parent pass away from cancer this year.  I have spent hours and hours frustrated and on the verge of tears trying to find out what was happening with my relative’s treatments and then trying to co-ordinate with more than one hospital is enough to make me want to take up Voodoo and curse the lot of them.  However I have discovered just recently that once someone gets into palliative care for their pain, that the communication between practitioners does get a little better.

And on a more practical note, hospital parking is a b!tch.  The last thing you want to do when you are visiting a sick or dying relative, or having someone visit you is to be hit for $12-$15 parking!  I can wear it as I work and I think my relatives are worth it, but I can imagine most people who have to be treated in the public hospital system may find it a stretch if they are visiting frequently.  And the thing is when someone is sick, they do need frequent visits.  Hospital is a miserable place, and I imagine it’s quite lonely sitting there by yourself in pain with little other than the telly to take your mind off it – if you want to pay the $10/day to watch.  I’ve been hit up twice today as I needed to go home for lunch and to sort out some other stuff I’ve got going on, whilst I am still on holidays.  The other thing that drove me nuts this week when taking my relative in to be admitted to the PA, is that once you drop someone off in Emergency, there is no where within an easy distance to park, meaning it’s at least 20 minutes before you can get to your seriously ill family member or friend.  That being said, whilst my family member was pretty sick and was admitted straight away, there did seem to be a lot of people in the waiting room who did not look particularly sick or injured (except the woman who was having her hand strapped up by the guy at the registration desk as he took down her details).  I realise the health system has to address people who turn up to hospital with ailments that could be addressed by GPs (upping the amount reimbursed by Medicare would be a good start), but having inconvenient parking and 2 hour time restrictions on parking in the area is not a good way to do it.  Also I find it a little disconcerting having to go through the pscyh ward to get to the main hospital from the car park.  I know that I’m safe, but I also know that that’s the ward that gives most of my friend in health care the most grief.  It creeps me out and borders on inappropriate planning.

And finally, a few points on strategy.  I can not believe how few (read: none) hospitals are going into new areas in Brisbane and other expanding areas in Queensland.  No wonder there is such pressure on housing and accommodation in older areas that are still well serviced – living in the outer suburbs you really wouldn’t want to risk something like cardiac arrest as you wouldn’t get into a hospital on time.  And secondly there really needs to be more done to address chronic illnesses before they set in.  And not just colour coding tuckshop food for children – seriously funding cooking classes, quitting smoking services, alcohol rehab, etc.