Health service in Australia

[JoanneC]

Hi there

I'm a journalist based in the UK and I'm doing a story for the Guardian on the health service in Australia, aimed at British people thinking about moving to Australia.

Does anyone have any experiences they would like to share with me, or general thoughts on how the system compares to the NHS?

If so, please contact me on joanne.elizabeth.christie@googlemail.com and I'll arrange a time to give you a quick phone call, or email some questions.

Cheers, Jo

[ali]

Jo only had to use the Dr once so can't really comment on the health service. I do know that people tend to block ED because care there is essentially free as out of hours GP's are expensive. On the radio yesterday there was talk of introducing a maximum number of people who could be in ED I think they quoted the numbers of 55 and 53 people for Charlies and Royal Perth - nurses are saying they shouldn't have to make the decision to turn people away as it could have serious consequences.

My only experience here was with dental - In the UK my daughter was referred to see an orthodontist - we were told that the appointment for assessment would be 12 - 18 months, we hadn't received an appointment when we left the UK in January this year.

Here, her school dentist gave me a letter - I could choose which orthodontist I wanted to go to from a list, we had an appointment that week. X-ray and 2nd appointment the week after. I paid for the initial consultations $50 (no payment for the xray and 2nd appointment) but I will have to pay for the braces which I believe is about $3,000 - $4,000 but my daughter will already have her braces before she would even get an appointment in the UK.

Ali

[Vix]

I personally think that most health care systems have their problems. Most people will complain about waiting times etc in the UK and Australia has similar problems. From my experience so far here I have found the health care fine. We have to pay to see our doctor $50 and we get back $30 from medicare...you could go to a bulk bill doctor but the wait could be a long one. I do not see why you should have to pay for childrens dental work here, we are hoping that our children will not have to go down the braces route!!
When I had my little girl here in Australia we found out half way through our shared care scheme(doctor and midwife) that we could have got our first two scans for free by going through the hospital(it would have saved us $200 or more) We then changed to all midwife care through the hospital and they were great. No problems at all throughout the pregnancy and birth.
Not sure if this is of any help? Vic

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Jo

My elderly mother, then aged 80, fell and broke her hip whilst visiting Australia in 2000. She was taken to the public hospital in Fremantle and operated on within 2 hours of admission. Afterwards, they would not let her go home to my sister's house until somebody had been to the house to ensure that there were plenty of grab rails in places like Mum's bathroom. They gave her hydrothrapy to help her to start using her hip again and so forth. In the UK, I have heard of the elderly being left on trolleys in corridors for up to three days before anyone even does anything about the fracture, let alone anything about aftercare and the shock that sets in unless something is done quickly tends to be what kills these elderly patients, not the fracture itself. In other words, these deaths on trolleys following hip-fractures cold be prevented much of the time it would seem.

Subsequently, Mum went to Bali on holiday and collected a very nasty eye infection. Not knowing what was wrong, my sister took her to the GP on their return to Oz. He examined Mum and told my sister to take her straight to the hospital without going home first. He said it was very serious and needed immdiate specialist care. He rang the hospital eye people to let them know that Elaine & Mum were en route.

Mum was admitted immediately. Apparently the concern was to prevent the infection from spreading in to her brain and for about 3-4 days they were muttering about removing her eye. However, they hit Mum with horse-doses of antibiotics, got on top of the infection and cured her. She has lost probably 80% of the sight in that eye but she still has two eyes and the problem has not recurred.

More recently still, Mum has been complaining of back-pain. She broke her spine some years ago and a wedge of bone is pressing into her spinal chord. This causes pain in her legs but not in her back, so the onset of pain in her back is worrying. They have x-rayed her back from 5 different angles to make sure that the wedge of bone has not moved. It hasn't, so they did an MRI scan to see whether something else is the cause. That has drawn a blank too so they are now trying physio and hydrothrapy because the current theory is that this is muscular pain though there is no apparent cause for its onset.

I do not believe that Mum would have had even 1/10 of this sort of care in the UK.

PM me if you would like to discuss any of this in more detail though actually I've told you everything that I know since I am in the UK.

I am FIRMLY convinced that health services for the elderly are a MILLION times better in Oz than in the UK.

Cheers

Gill

[koala12]

Hi Jo
I've been in Sydney 9 months and thankfully not had too much to do with health service. However, I have had to see a GP on a few occasions and medicare covers the cost, they just swipe your card. Over here you don't have to register with a GP as you do in UK, you can go and see anyone you like if that's what you prefer. Also, although you have to pay for your medications there are lots of pharmacies that ask if you want generic brands which often work out cheaper and everything I have had to have so far has cost less than prescription charge would have been in UK. I recently found out I needed to have pelvic ultrasounds and an appointment was made for this within a week and the results were available the same day for me to take to my GP. I had to pay but medicare refunded half of the cost. I believe had I been in UK I would have had to wait weeks for the test itself and then further weeks for results all adding to the worry, etc. I had to take my daughter to A&E several weeks ago as she suffered a severe reaction to an insect bite. We had to wait a while but she was treated very thoroughly and we were satsfied with the attention she got. Also women over 40 are offered mamograms and if you are over 50 you are reminded every 2 years to have it repeated. They seem very big on preventative medicine here.
Hope this helps

Karen