On realising sometimes how good you have it (healthcare)
I attended a session today which was designed for Anaesthetic Fellows like myself who were about to finish their training, giving advice on all the sorts of things that you need to get organised when you qualify, going into practice.
Along with all the stuff about the billing, insurance, practice arrangements, paperwork, government regulation and the multitude of other things you have to do as a consultant anaesthetist, there was an interesting session on decisions in your career: public work vs private work, urban vs rural work, and there was a section on choosing to donate your time to do overseas aid.
Overseas medical aid takes the role of many different forms - in some cases it's covering anaesthetists on certain islands so that they can go and get some inservices - sometimes it's teaching the locals how to do surgery and anaesthetics, and sometimes it's doing work in self-sufficient teams coming over from Australia. It'd all be very interesting and really valuable work. The main reason is that the patients are usually sicker, usually more likely to die, and so you can have a greater impacts (by preventing a child dying by fixing their congenital heart disease).
As I looked through the pictures of what they were doing, I felt a tremendous sense that we don't deserve the incredible healthcare that we have in Australia. It's a priviledge to have a system that cares for everyone. Particularly when you see these people that manage with so little care, and often die from inadequate healthcare.
It's amazing how many people complain about their healthcare in Australia. Not that people don't have legitimate complaints, but sometimes it's good to put them in perspective. There was a story today about how when these medical teams go over to perform surgery for a week or two and patients that can get operated on in that time miss out. People line up there for lifesaving surgery in the same way that we line up for concert tickets or consumer electronics.
There was a woman that was mentioned this morning who had come from an outlying island via boat to the small hospital in Papua New Guinea. A month before the team had arrived in town, she was camping outside the clinic door with her child, so that the child could be first in line for the heart surgery that was going to make sure that her child would not miss out on closing the hole the child had in their heart (ventricular septal defect). The reality is that children with these sorts of problems usually get to about age 10 and then at that time the disease is so irreversibly advanced that they die before age 15.
Particularly when I think that the amount of money that has been spent on me and my back injury could fund 4 or 5 cardiac operations on kids which would be lifesaving. Yes, my back injury was devastating to me, and I still have issues, which are improving slowly. But every step of the way, I got the care I needed, from the specialist I wanted, and I didn't pay a cent. But when the money they spent on helping me get over my back injury could save 4 or 5 lives of kids, you start to wonder where the equity is that I get the healthcare that I need, and others in the world probably do not. There is just no fairness in that at all. What did I do to deserve such good care? It's only that I was lucky enough to be born in a country with a good healthcare system and to be lucky enough to have massive resources and good, uncorrupt government that provides welfare, healthcare, and education to all its citizens.
It reinforced in my mind that I'm going to join one of the AusAID trips and do this annually in the future. It's only fair. To give back in honour of the system that has been so good to me.
Along with all the stuff about the billing, insurance, practice arrangements, paperwork, government regulation and the multitude of other things you have to do as a consultant anaesthetist, there was an interesting session on decisions in your career: public work vs private work, urban vs rural work, and there was a section on choosing to donate your time to do overseas aid.
Overseas medical aid takes the role of many different forms - in some cases it's covering anaesthetists on certain islands so that they can go and get some inservices - sometimes it's teaching the locals how to do surgery and anaesthetics, and sometimes it's doing work in self-sufficient teams coming over from Australia. It'd all be very interesting and really valuable work. The main reason is that the patients are usually sicker, usually more likely to die, and so you can have a greater impacts (by preventing a child dying by fixing their congenital heart disease).
As I looked through the pictures of what they were doing, I felt a tremendous sense that we don't deserve the incredible healthcare that we have in Australia. It's a priviledge to have a system that cares for everyone. Particularly when you see these people that manage with so little care, and often die from inadequate healthcare.
It's amazing how many people complain about their healthcare in Australia. Not that people don't have legitimate complaints, but sometimes it's good to put them in perspective. There was a story today about how when these medical teams go over to perform surgery for a week or two and patients that can get operated on in that time miss out. People line up there for lifesaving surgery in the same way that we line up for concert tickets or consumer electronics.
There was a woman that was mentioned this morning who had come from an outlying island via boat to the small hospital in Papua New Guinea. A month before the team had arrived in town, she was camping outside the clinic door with her child, so that the child could be first in line for the heart surgery that was going to make sure that her child would not miss out on closing the hole the child had in their heart (ventricular septal defect). The reality is that children with these sorts of problems usually get to about age 10 and then at that time the disease is so irreversibly advanced that they die before age 15.
Particularly when I think that the amount of money that has been spent on me and my back injury could fund 4 or 5 cardiac operations on kids which would be lifesaving. Yes, my back injury was devastating to me, and I still have issues, which are improving slowly. But every step of the way, I got the care I needed, from the specialist I wanted, and I didn't pay a cent. But when the money they spent on helping me get over my back injury could save 4 or 5 lives of kids, you start to wonder where the equity is that I get the healthcare that I need, and others in the world probably do not. There is just no fairness in that at all. What did I do to deserve such good care? It's only that I was lucky enough to be born in a country with a good healthcare system and to be lucky enough to have massive resources and good, uncorrupt government that provides welfare, healthcare, and education to all its citizens.
It reinforced in my mind that I'm going to join one of the AusAID trips and do this annually in the future. It's only fair. To give back in honour of the system that has been so good to me.