Archive for category Health

Health still in a half-baked crisis

by @FakeFielding on 3 March 2010
Categories: Health, Politics | Tags: , , ,

A few months ago I had the misfortune to require the services of a hospital and the experience has ultimately had a huge impact on health policy in this country. Susan was taking the kids to the cinema but I wasn’t allowed to go because it was an M-rated film so I was staying home alone. She made me some lunch and put it on a plate in the microwave with a Post-it note arrow stuck next to the keypad, and left on the table a John Farnham, Live In Concert DVD for me to watch. I love staying home alone because I can be totally independent and do what I want.

Having successfully re-heated my food after five frustrating minutes spent realising that I had to press the button next to the Post-in note arrow, not the arrow itself, I settled down in the lounge room to watch the DVD. But all of a sudden disaster struck when I stuck the DVD into the VHS machine without even thinking! What an idiot! Panicking, I frantically pressed EJECT on the remote control and the machine itself, but the disc wouldn’t come out. I changed the batteries and tried again but still nothing! I called Susan to ask what to do but her phone was on silent inside the cinema. Breathing deep to keep the anxiety at bay I knew it was time for some creative thinking.

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The slippery slope

by Scott Bridges on 8 February 2010
Categories: Health, Politics | Tags: , ,

A couple of days ago I had a horrid case of gastro with the works – both ends plus a fever. Punctuated only by regular visits to the toilet, I spent the day laying on the bed and staring at the ceiling fan. I got to thinking about voluntary euthanasia and in particular one of the political arguments used against it, namely the “slippery slope”.

Even though it was just a bog standard stomach bug from a dirty Indian saucepan, thinking about euthanasia was natural in my circumstances. For two days I was unable to eat, unable to participate in any of the activities I had planned, and unable to do anything pleasant to kill time. Using the slippery slope argument I was just a few slips of the slope away from being in a permanent and terminal state of extreme pain and discomfort, drifting in and out of consciousness thanks to the strong medication I needed to cope with the pain, not a single shred of dignity intact, and condemned to living like this for the rest of my limited and pointless days. It was simply terrible, I tell you, and temporarily reinforced my belief that were I ever in a situation like that I would want access to a legal voluntary euthanasia option.

But then I thought about the slippery slope, and I was reminded of why we should never make anything legal that might benefit some people if an adulterated and more evil version of that thing is possible. Voluntary euthanasia, if legal, might bring to an end the suffering of people in the most horrible of circumstances at their request, but it’s possible to think of a future version of a voluntary euthanasia law that made it, perhaps, involuntary, or even that legal voluntary euthanasia encouraged involuntary euthanasia. These outcomes are clearly undesirable so good must be sacrificed to prevent evil.

It’s just like how they started limited overs cricket and from there it was a slippery slope to Twenty20. Or how the Internet was invented and down the slope we slipped to Twitter. The world has suffered, and will continue to suffer, thanks to these short-sighted initial acts.

However, wrapping myself in a blanket to ward of a feverish chill, and grappling with these heavy issues, I was struck by a sudden thought that the whole slippery slope thing is the biggest pile of intellectually-lazy shit ever to be shat out into reasoned debate. Maybe it was the gastro talking, but I couldn’t see why any rational human should ever have to listen to the words “slippery slope” again.

So, with a few solid meals now in my gut, and my thinking being a lot less sloppy, I see no need for any more talk about slippery slopes or other out-of-your-arse arguments. We’re all adults here.

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Mental health and markets: two kinds of failure

by David F on 31 January 2010
Categories: Health, Science, Society, Technology |

It’s nice that the Federal Government has given a gong to Pat McGorry, but our country’s commitment to psychiatric treatment remains at the level of mere lip service. I read with interest a recent newspaper article reporting on the Federal Government’s scheme for giving subsidies to private psychologists. This program began in 2006, in response to widespread evidence of a ‘crisis’ in mental health. Psychiatric problems constituted a vast percentage of overall health burden in Australia, yet were systematically under-funded (in proportional terms). The then-Howard Government arranged for psychologists operating in private practice to be subject to Medicare rebates for the first time. The aim here was to allow the private system to pick up the slack for an over-burdened public system. These are the results:

MEDICARE spending on psychological therapy will blow out to $1.5 billion by 2011, twice its budget allocation, according to a new analysis.

Despite the huge investment – three times the original five-year estimates when the scheme began in 2006 – the Federal Government has not released any evidence that the consultations are improving mental health…

Long consultations with psychologists grew fastest – by 32 per cent. But they were used disproportionately by city dwellers, with country people only about 60 per cent as likely to attend them.

The analysis also shows patients are being hit by out-of-pocket expenses likely to be prohibitive for those on lower incomes – an average $35 for 50 minutes with a psychologist.

This result is not surprising, and I’d like to touch on two related points to elucidate the origins of this costly failure:

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Jack off

by Ross Sharp on 25 November 2009
Categories: Health, Society | Tags: , ,

In what has been described by experts as “reckless, irresponsible, highly disappointing, ridiculous and shocking”, a potentially fatal toxin was recently released to the Australian public and may have been unwittingly consumed by possibly tens of thousands of hapless victims.

It is understood that consumption of this toxin can lead to any or all of the following symptoms -

Chronic high blood pressure, heart attack, kidney failure, stroke, obesity, asthma, serious heart disease.

Leading Australian toxicologists have urged the public not to panic in the wake of the poison’s emergence but are advising caution be exercised in areas where the toxin has been located so far and is most likely to present itself, i.e. food halls and shopping malls.

Bruce Neal, acting Commander of The Sydney World Action on Bio-Genetic and Bio-Terrorist Terminal Toxins Unit demanded the Federal Government take immediate action to eliminate this threat to the health of the nation’s populace by taking such drastic measures as “restricting the ability of people to move freely in or through areas where the toxin is known to exist. We have had reports of people who have consciously chosen to consume this poisonous substance, of their own free will, and we call on the Prime Minister as a matter of utmost urgency to take whatever action may be needed to put a halt to this behaviour immediately and to stop any further spread of this deadly material throughout the wider community. If the military need be bought in, so be it.”

Tony Thirlwell, chief executive of the Poking Our Fingers In Your Chest And Wagging Them In Your Face And Nagging You Till You Die Foundation added that “we run the risk here of cultivating a culture of death if we continue to allow this type of thing to happen. I call on the Prime Minister and the Federal Government to launch an immediate Senate inquiry into how this situation has been allowed to arise.”

Family First Senator Steve Fielding told a media pack last night that he had consumed the substance in question during play lunch the day before, but that it would not prevent him from carrying out his day-to-day parliamentary duties. When asked what effect the poison had had on him, Senator Fielding replied “My pants hurt and I blew a hole in my favourite Snoopy doona”.

Pastor Danny Nahlia of Catch The Fire Ministries also said a few things, none of which made the slightest bit of sense, and a large number of people simply wondered why all these other people couldn’t simply shut the fuck up and mind their own fucking business for once in their miserable fucking lives and stop making out that some shitty bloody hamburger is going bring down civilisation as we know it.

Pass the chips.

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