‘Complete mayhem’ as healthcare system buckles under pressure | lucy_carroll marywardy
A senior nurse working in a critical role at one of Sydney’s biggest hospitals despairs at the tidal wave of patients flooding emergency every day.
A backlog of unmet medical needs, staff burnout, the pandemic and a severe flu season have combined to push the system to the brink with one former health official saying “we can no longer pretend” we have universal healthcare.Emeritus professor of medicine at the University of NSW John Dwyer says it is time for radical change. “We are not talking about tinkering at the edges. Our healthcare system is no longer fit for purpose. We need to seize the moment with a new federal government.
NSW Ambulance has been swamped by record triple-zero calls that have hit up to 3900 daily. With many non-urgent, the state’s senior assistant ambulance commissioner Clare Beech has proposed a trial of 500 taxis to take low-acuity patients to other health services like GPs and chemists.“There are a lot of patients who call triple zero because they are unsure about the most appropriate health service to access,” Beech told the.
Patients can wait weeks to get into a GP. The state’s rural health inquiry heard that wait times to access a GP in Moree are three to six weeks, if one is even available. The head of the NSW Rural Doctors Network Richard Colbran says 600 rural general practitioners - who also work as visiting medical officers at local hospitals - have left their positions in the past 10 years. There are now fewer than 200 GP VMOs in rural NSW, he says.
Maskell-Knight says governments have “set Medicare funding levels and walked away, assuming that’s OK”.“If you go to a specialist you will face $200 in out-of-pocket costs. Wages in the health sector are also falling behind,” he says.
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