Sydney Morning Herald Online

Home   >   Opinion   >   Letters   >   Article

Toll mounts while governments play the blame game

December 15, 2003

Printer friendly version Print this article
Email to a friend Email to a friend

The State Government is pretending to be surprised by the revelations about deaths in its hospitals. Every year at least 4500 patients die of preventable causes in Australian hospitals. That's the same as 10 jumbo jets crashing every year with all lives lost.

This has been known at least since 1999 when the Federal Government set up a committee to address the issue. Most hospital doctors remain unaware of the committee or any actions to fix the problem.

One of the reasons these errors are not exposed is that individuals in the system are reluctant to disclose the problems for fear of being involved in the blame game. Both the State and Federal governments have sat on their hands since that committee started working, and now a NSW commission trying to address the issue is blamed for not playing the blame game.

Since the Federal Government's committee was set up, at least another 18,000 patients have died. Implementing the changes suggested by the federal committee needs both Federal and State government resources and co-operation, and avoidance of the blaming mentality.

In the absence of any of these we can expect another 10 jumbo jets full of patients to crash with all lives lost next year.

Dr Tim Woodruff, President, Doctors Reform Society, Richmond (Vic), December 13.

Your headline reads "Knowles insists he did nothing wrong" (Herald, December 13-14). Surely the last word should have been omitted.

Bill Carpenter, Bowral, December 13.

The report into the South Western Area Health Service tragedy highlights a problem manifest in the Macarthur area but also endemic in our multi-tiered health system.

Over the past 10 years just about every major teaching hospital in Sydney has seen a private hospital built adjacent to it. The private hospitals have had no trouble attracting qualified clinical staff, meanwhile the sickest and poorest people in our state, in our isolated rural areas and on the metropolitan fringes, are often looked after by the least qualified and most poorly supervised doctors.

All doctors in Australia are well remunerated, but the discrepancy in income between what can be earned performing procedures on relatively well patients during normal working hours in private hospitals compared with working on sick patients in the public system is obscene. This means that many specialists, procedural specialists in particular, have no financial incentive to work in the public system.

Our teaching hospitals can still attract well-qualified staff but the level of supervision of junior staff, particularly out of hours, is variable and sub-specialty dependent. You can't be up all night operating in the public hospital if you have to cancel your private list the next day.

Our smaller public hospitals in the city and many country hospitals are struggling. They don't have enough qualified specialists and often rely on career medical officers without specialist qualifications and often performing the work of specialists without adequate supervision, because the specialists they do have can't work 24 hours a day.

Dr Peter Gibson, Wentworthville, December 13.

Why the rush to blame individuals in response to the health service report? The problems there relate to many NSW hospitals and are due to system, not individual, failures.

The first reason goes back to the early 1990s when highly paid management consultants cut a swathe through many NSW hospitals in the name of economic rationalism. Nursing numbers suffered most. Many experienced nurses left as stress levels rose, morale fell and nursing ceased to be a popular career choice for young Australians. Where are those management consultants now?

The second relates to the part-time employment of many senior doctors as visiting medical officers, an anachronism from the pre-Medicare days. When senior doctors have their main commitments outside the public hospital, inevitably public patient service provision, junior doctor supervision and team leadership are not given a high priority.

If the public hospital system wants commited senior doctors it needs to employ them full time and support them with appropriate resources.

And, finally, there is unsustainable community expectation of a high-tech hospital in every neighbourhood. Modern medicine is too technology- and human-resource intensive. Politicians need to have the guts to rationalise public hospitals into units of sustainable size.

Nick Evans, Gladesville, December 13.

So how about an annual national whistleblowers holiday to celebrate the respect our society has for those whose sense of justice and community advancement outweigh their own personal considerations - the nurses, the Wilkies, the Azzopardis, et al.

While we are at it, why not a Whistleblower of the Year, alongside the Australian of the Year award.

Chris Charles, Chatswood, December 15.

By way of contrast, our son was taken to Milton Hospital after fainting and falling heavily at a school music camp. The care and attention received at the hospital was outstanding.

Phil Armour, Yass, December 14.

Democrats will pay for refusing to call time on Bartlett

The Democrats have been unfairly typecast as being touchy-feely kind of folks. I congratulate them on retaining Andrew Bartlett ("Democrats hope that compassion is catching", Herald, December 13-14). It is a return to traditional values, and pays homage to those sage words of the South Australian judge who famously said that, at times, some women need rougher than usual handling.

Joe Weller, Lewisham, December 13.

They just don't get it, do they? The issue is not that their leader had too much to drink. That makes him only human. It's the ugly underbelly of his character that the truth serum revealed that is the real issue.

Bruce Williams, Merewether, December 12.

So Andrew Bartlett will remain as the Democrats leader, but is on leave until the beginning of February. Not a bad deal: get drunk at work, harass someone, and get a two-month paid holiday. I think I'll go into politics.

Pip Denton, Guildford, December 13.

The Democrats appear to have lost all sense of political nous and cohesion. Can they seriously expect the voting public to maintain any respect for their leader, or confidence in his continued leadership (or in the party), with public remarks such as Senator Cherry's: "If he [Senator Bartlett] puts one foot out of place we'll come down on him like a ton of bricks"?

Watch out, Senator Cherry. The bricks have already started to fall and they'll certainly bury more than just Andrew Bartlett.

Tom Palagyi, Pacific Pines (Qld), December 13.

Best for Iraq, or best for US?

Of course George Bush would award contracts to US firms in Iraq because "it's their country", David Baird (Letters, December 13-14), or because the contracts are entirely US-funded, George Fishman (Letters, December 13-14).

The important point is: why would they not want the most efficient and cost-effective work done by using an open contract system? Free enterprise, supported by freedom-loving people everywhere, must be introduced into American society if it is to shake off the shackles of its feudal political system based on the power of "mates".

Howard Clark, Ryde, December 13.

George Fishman got it wrong in claiming the reconstruction of Iraq is entirely US-funded. A wide range of countries have contributed to this endeavour, as the prime ministers of Japan and Canada recently pointed out.

But a better reason for calling for tenders would be that the US taxpayer might stand a better chance of not being ripped off by the likes of Halliburton, the well-connected American conglomerate which an investigation has suggested overcharged US taxpayers $82.5 million for petrol shipped from Kuwait to Iraq.

In fairness, we should acknowledge the US efforts to repair the damage it caused in Iraq, but that does not mean we should blindly support all its policies.

Patrick Sayers, Woollahra, December 14.

The news that contracts for re-building in Iraq will be let only to companies from those countries that supported the war is interesting.

Besides the small matter of weapons of mass destruction, other justifications for the invasion were freedom and better conditions for the residents of Iraq.

We have been told by George Bush et al that free markets and free enterprise are necessary for freedom, yet a free market is not suitable for the tendering process for the reconstruction work.

Also, the simplest economic principles suggest that the maximum benefit to the people of Iraq would be obtained by finding the companies which can provide the best results with the money available for reconstruction, wherever in the world they are based. Or perhaps this exercise is for the benefit of others besides the Iraqis?

Andrew Belford, Croydon Park, December 13.

Crime, and punishment

The intentionally lit fire that killed our biggest tree and millions of other life forms along with it was called a regeneration fire ("A gentle giant falls in the forest as a fresh green battle begins", Herald, December 13-14).

While this tree - and the many others still being destroyed today with government approval - are hundreds of years old, they form part of forests that took hundreds of millions of years to evolve. It's not easy to regenerate a 400-million-year-old forest, let alone the plethora of life that depends on it.

As two men charged with malicious damage go on trial for painting "No War" on the Opera House tiles (damage that money can repair) it will be interesting to compare the punishment handed out to Forestry Tasmania.

Larry Tofler, Hawks Nest, December 14.

Home, safe, home

It seems that the United Nations is considering withdrawing its staff - because of the deteriorating security situation - from the same Afghanistan to which the Prime Minister, John Howard, and Senator Amanda Vanstone intend to send back rejected asylum seekers, because it is now so much safer then when they left.

Good joke, guys. But now let's be serious.

Fred McArdle, Brunswick, December 13.

Distance schooling

I agree with Ernie Tucker (Letters, December 13-14), but not only is money wasted on the issuing of unused bus passes, some students are entitled to free travel to all but their local school.

If a child's home is too close to a school, bus passes cost $160 a year.

The eligible distance from a school for the issuing of free travel passes is calculated in a straight line, even if walking means negotiating a main road (without deviating to the nearest safe crossing), traversing water and walking through bushland.

I don't mind paying for the pass as it is a fraction of the cost of a ticket each day. However, if we chose a school much further away travel to it would be free.

By this logic a flight on Qantas to Canberra should cost $1000 but to Europe, nothing. Surely there should be a sliding scale of travel pass charges, and it should increase if students bypass their local school in favour of one more distant.

Claudette Rones, Lane Cove, December 13.

Be prepared

With reference to the news about the English tourist who perished in a remote part of Western Australia, it amazes me that people are still venturing into the wilderness without proper training and equipment, necessitating rescue operations which risk the lives of rescuers and which cost taxpayers a considerable amount of money.

Everyone venturing into the wilderness should be properly trained and equipped, and leave details of where they are going with family, friends or the relevant authority.

Also it should be mandatory for them to carry a satellite telephone and directional location beeper.

The Government should legislate to ensure that any person breaching these rules should be held accountable for the cost of rescue operations.

Bill Alcock, Port Macquarie, December 13.

If Jon Johanson had been a yachtie, he may have been rescued by the Australian Navy.

E. Walker, Forster, December 14.

Don't be fooled: it's culture

Your story ("The shape we're in", Spectrum, December 13-14) informs us that Elle, Kylie and Sarah, three good-looking Aussie girls who haven't uttered a word that could advance intellectual debate in Australia, are now sending a powerful message to the world that Australia is feminine, international and unshackled from the land.

Crikey, I feel stupid. I thought it was just a blatant advertising gimmick to flog undies.

Max Fischer, Scarborough, December 14.

Find the link

A statistical analysis of personalised registration plates and road traffic infringements would doubtless prove that there is a strong positive correlation. They should be banned.

Bernie Corden, Mona Vale, December 12.

Not fair

Hang on. How come there is only one national competition council?

Joe Dwyer, Rose Bay, December 13.

Costly memories

Does someone really pay the astronomical prices asked for cricket memorabilia flogged during Test match telecasts?

Ted Matulevicius, Goonellabah, December 14.

Sad and sorry tale

And what, P. Herring (Letters, December 13-14), do we call the people who write about the people who gawk at the "sad bastards"? And, now I think about it, what do we call us people who write about the people who write about the people who gawk at the sad bastards?

Steve King, Bathurst, December 13.

Strike me dead

Telstra warns us about speaking on the phone during an electrical storm. Well, during Friday's beauty, guess who phoned me?

Carolyn Wills, Cremorne, December 13.

Keep it simple

Jeff Goddard (Letters, December 13-14), let's make the republic question even clearer: "Do you wish to retain a head of state who wants someone else to win the rugby?"

Sophie J. Kunze, Penrith, December 13.

Spreading the cheer

Why not have two Christmases? Have your kith and kin around for the feast on the 25th, and gift-giving on New Year's Day - after you've bought cut-price presents at the sales. Two for the price of less than one.

Frank Hainsworth, Burleigh (Qld), December 14.

Alive and kicking

It isn't Mick Jagger who should be congratulated on his knighthood, but Keith Richards. Keith has defied the odds with a lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll and actually gets to turn 60 this week - a milestone most people thought he would never reach.

Con Vaitsas, Ashbury, December 13.


Send your letters to:
Fax: +61 (0)2 9282 3492
Snailmail: GPO Box 3771, Sydney 2001

Letters archive

Man of letters

- Column 8
- Spike
- Cartoon
- Obituaries