Nobody is omniscient but I do know my age.
To Glo,
You didn’t address any of my points, not one. Medicare for visits to Drs practices, and the Medicare arrangements with the States and Territories for public hospitals, make it unnecessary to go to a private hospital, especially for an Emergency. Are you that silly to PAY when you wouldn’t have to!?
And that’s the first Private Hospital I’ve heard of with an Emergency Department, here in Oz. Folks don’t go to them because the Public ones are way better, if slower.
For some people who’ve not looked after themselves and need a hip-replacement, and they can really afford it PH insurance may be a good idea.
We’ve had the Medicare arrangements and Medicare for a very long time.
Publicly funded health care costs us as a nation way, way less than the US system does.
I KNOW about this and you do not. I’ve worked with the US Health System and been a patient of it, in each case on secondment and working group meetings.
LBNL, political opinions don’t wash with costs and facts!
In Brisbane many of the larger private hospitals have energency departments, such as Greenslopes, Mater Private, Westley and the list goes on. I suspect the same applies for other private hospitals in other capitals/states.
There has been many reports that many Australians use public hospital emergency departments as a surrogate doctors service…and attend when the health issue is not an emergency. This is possibly due to the ‘free’ nature of these emergency departments, unwillingness to go to a GP or so that one doesn’t have to wait to see a local GP.
Overloading of the public emergency departments as a result of non-emergency visitations is a real problem as it may delay critical attention to those who need it most.
I suspect that private emergency departments provide an option to those with private health insurance and take the load off the already overloaded public hospital emergency departments.
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Happens to people who do look after themselves too!
Once you are older or gain experience with the aged the reality is we all wear out. Genetics is a factor. We all make our own life choices.
If you are born with a defect or weakness, not all medical conditions respond to healthy eating and exercise. Although good habits can reduce the effects or risks.
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As @phb referenced in his part of the country, there are quite a few private hospitals around Melbourne with emergency departments, although the major trauma centres are in the public hospital system.
I can attest that a ‘quick’ visit to the Austin’s ER will be 4 hours unless one has a life threatening condition, seemingly time and season consistent as they add and reduce staff accordingly. Been there with a life threatening condition (3 minutes from the door to treatment), as well as broken bones (4 hours). Many people attending the ER appeared to have problems they could and probably should have gone to a GP clinic; accepting that appearances can be deceiving. However with the funding pressures I expect if those patients went to a GP the ER staff would be further reduced to consistent ‘4 hours’ services, probably anchored in some table as being within ‘clinically appropriate time’.
While not addressed to me, how so? A presumption?
I lived it for 44 years not just for a brief visit. Our experiences in that system will be different, you apparently as a visitor and myself as an American with top end health insurance. I never had a worry there; in contrast those with lesser insurance paid significantly more; and those without insurance had to pay out of pocket or find charity sponsors. Visitors needing care encounter a dog’s breakfast of fees and services that can be confusing to a native let alone a traveller, often requiring payment up front or pre-authorisation from an insurer unless it is a life threatening trauma, and then when one wakes up the ‘financial responsibility form’ is one of the first things thrust into one’s hand for signature.
‘Our’ value system is different from the American value system, but ours is being cajoled toward the US model by the governments we elect. At the end of the day we have a choice of centre-right or centre-Right who as it stands in these times, seem to do the same things just in different degrees.
On balance how many times does one read about an Aussie having to travel to and fund a procedure in the USA at full cost, that is not available here at any price? Even in medicine greed and profits make the world go around, and what works a treat in some places won’t be given a chance in others.
Voters do not always respond to facts and the pollies have long since learnt emotion causes ‘us’ to vote the way ‘we’ do more often than anything ‘fact’, and conduct campaigns accordingly.
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IME public hospitals are way better than Private ones.
Do the maths of accounting, eh?
I’m booked for a minor, but fairly necessary elective surgery at a private hospital in country WA in a couple of weeks (originally scheduled for end of april).
My surgeon doesn’t really care whether his patients go private or public, and even though he knows I have silver plus hospital cover, was happy to offer me either option. When I asked about the waiting times he said “About the same… but there’s an extremely high chance the public hospital will reschedule you at the last minute, and likely more than once.”
Considering that my husband and I both work, and we are fortunate enough that our private health is affordable within our budget, having the option to go private and know that barring an extreme emergency the surgery will go ahead on the day it’s booked is worthwhile (we’d lose more than our excess is worth if we had to rebook time off for both of us). It also means that maybe one more person who can’t afford private health will be seen in a more timely manner by our under-resourced local public hospital.
I keep extras primarily for dental, but also optical. I need regular major dental care, often at short notice, and there is zero access to public adult services without a health care card. I make sure to maximise our usage of our other limits, and claim every jolly thing we can, from “wellness programs” to checkups and preventative health care, to physio for the niggling back ache.
Even a very healthy younger person like me can have things go suddenly wrong (but not wrong enough to be a life threatening emergency), and if you can afford it, it’s worth the cost to have the cushion and the certainty of access to timely treatment.
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