Australia’s government-run health care is “down under”
January 23rd, 2009 | by Brian Schwartz |
From the II’s Linda Gorman:
According to the Australian Medical Association, every public hospital in New South Wales is dangerously overcrowded, causing 1,500 unnecessary deaths each year. Patients stack up in corridors and emergency rooms waiting for beds. Hospitals routinely cancel elective surgeries. On September 8, 2008, 23 patients with government coverage were admitted to the Townsville hospital through the emergency department. As there were no beds for them, elective surgeries were canceled. [link] Psychiatric patients in other hospitals are routinely restrained and sedated due to an acute shortage of psychiatric beds. [link] …
As is generally the case with government controlled health care systems, Australia’s public health care systems suffers from poor quality, poor access, and high costs.
Read the whole post here.
tags: Australia, coverage is not care, Linda Gorman
