The unhealthy state

Mike Bolan

Most relevant and moving were the various doctors and nurses who spoke, both from the rostrum and from the crowd. How our health professionals can continue despite the constant diversion of monies from critical infrastructures like health and education, into useless and destructive activities like racing, pulp mill support and marketing for mates is hard to understand, but thank God that our doctors and nurses are there for us.

SOMETHING like 5,000 – 6,000 gathered in Civic Square in Launceston to support the Launceston General Hospital.

Kerry Finch compered the proceedings which included various politicians who disclosed their party agendas very quickly. Standing out was Kim Booth, who put the problems squarely at the feet of state government priorities like football teams, racing and pulp mills. Michael Ferguson, Sue Napier, Ivan Dean and Lara Giddings also appeared and gave variously focussed messages.

Somewhat astonishingly, Lara Giddings appeared to actually believe what she was saying, claiming that she was there to listen. She then spoke for a considerable time and several times told the crowd to ‘let her speak’. I’m not sure how waving documents and claiming to care while producing a health system that is now threatening patients’ lives, can be characterised as ‘listening’. I’m also not sure what she made of the massive and echoing chorus of boos that greeted her departure from the rostrum but she managed a constant rictus throughout.

Most relevant and moving were the various doctors and nurses who spoke, both from the rostrum and from the crowd. How our health professionals can continue despite the constant diversion of monies from critical infrastructures like health and education, into useless and destructive activities like racing, pulp mill support and marketing for mates is hard to understand, but thank God that our doctors and nurses are there for us.

Mention was made of the fact that health bureaucrats only care about being within budget, they have no care about health whatsoever. This absurdity matters because the health bureaucrats control the hospitals’ funding and it is clear that funds are not found to meet health priorities, but that health professionals must ‘manage’ insufficient funds regardless of actual demand from the sick and injured. One senior doctor pointed out that the LGH was NOT over-budget, it was under-funded, a distinction clearly lost on the state government with a Treasurer who is also Minister for Racing.

The government’s Clinical Plan (which, we were told, was NOT supported by our medical practitioners) came up for a serve particularly as it shows a shift of priorities to Hobart notwithstanding that 52% of the population lives North of Oatlands.

Physicians told of insufficient beds, interfering bureaucrats, sick patients shuffled and shifted to corridors to make room for the most sick, a Clinical Plan that falsely assumes that other hospitals are close by, and a system that is collapsing through lack of money. Bernie Einoder finished up and gave an excellent overview of the LGH situation.

The doctors stated that they personally didn’t care where the difficulties were, they just wanted to funds to get on with their jobs and wanted the various levels of government to stop blaming each other and start fixing the problems. These messages were not heard by the Health Minister, who quickly moved to blame the federal government for the problems.

It really appears that this state government, and many of the politicians who spoke, see no contradiction between giving massive subsidies for a pulp mill to help our inefficient timber industry to ‘be profitable’ while under funding our health system. The recent Business Round Table report showed total needed subsidies for the mill to be in the order of $847 million over 25 years (these figures are said to be very conservative) which works out to about $33 million per year that could go into health instead.

Many see contradictions between massively subsidising the logging and racing industries while presiding over a health system in financial crisis, not so Lara Giddings who only focussed on the percentage of budget delivered to health. She gave no recognition to the problems that her bureaucrats and the Lennon government are creating, nor made any admissions about the gravity of the situation, nor moved to correct any of the criticisms made by the doctors. The nature of the problem for our hospitals was clear for all to experience and the crowd was singularly unimpressed.

It was both encouraging and horrifying to see so many people turn out to the rally. Encouraging that the medical staff were getting such support from the people, horrifying that the situation has come to this, where doctors and senior clinicians feel their only alternative was to hold public rallies which really shows the level of confidence that they have in the state government.

Lennon’s government hasn’t been in office for 2 years yet we’re already experiencing mass demonstrations against their actions. I shudder to think what the next 2 years will hold.