Public Perceptions of the Health Industry
HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATION
Too awesome to deal with.
PUBLIC TEACHING HOSPITALS
Where junior doctors practise with little or unsatisfactory supervision.
PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICES
Being intentionally run down by lack of funding.
HEALTH CARE FOR THE AGED
A low priority.
NURSING HOMES
Where you end up when you reach your use-by date, i.e. you cease being a taxpayer.
DEATH CERTIFICATES
Inaccurate, unreliable convenient palatable categories.
AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF STATISTICS
Also about convenient palatable categories.
MORPHINE
A drug associated with many deaths of the elderly.
CORONERS' INQUESTS
Where hospital administrators duck for cover behind high-priced lawyers - paid for by the taxpayer.
CORONERS' FINDINGS
Repeated mistakes and system problems high-lighted time after time and the deaths continue.
CORONERS' RECOMMENDATIONS
If only someone would implement them.
MEDICAL STANDARDS
What does 18,000 dead patients a year tell you?
OPEN DISCLOSURE
Honesty being used as a commodity to negotiate with politicians to avoid responsibility in exchange for unreliable data.
IMMUNITIES AND EXEMPTIONS
Protects the doctor's position and nothing else.
QUALIFIED PRIVILEGE
Insurance company device to reduce liability.
WHO'S IN CHARGE
Lawyers and insurance companies - supported by a culture of fear and secrecy.
HEALTH COMPLAINTS COMMISSIONS
Set up to take the heat off Ministers for Health.
THE WHOLE TRUTH
No one's really interested except the families.
JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Usually none or too little too late.
FAMILIES OF THE DECEASED
Ask too many questions - the nuisance factor.
DECEASED PATIENTS
Dead and buried and forgotten along with the evidence.