Public Vs. Private Health in Western Australia
Dad stayed in both a public and a private hospital here in Western Australia. Because he has health insurance, he was classified as a private patient staying in Fremantle public hospital. Private patients bring money into the poor public health system.
WA’s private hospitals aren’t equipped with the facilities or expertise to do an Ivor Lewis operation, so Dad had to go to Fremantle Public Hospital.
A twelve week stay in Fremantle and several weeks in Murdoch (St. John of God) Hospital was enough to give me a pretty good heads-up / straw-poll on the difference.
Private hospital (St John of God, Murdoch)
The nurses are a bit friendlier and on task at St John of God than they are in Fremantle and the food is slightly better. I say slightly because it’s like comparing 2 plates of re-heated aeroplane food. And anyway, for $2,500+ p.a. family health insurance you would expect the food to be a bit better. Plus, in private hospital, Dad always had a single room to himself. But that’s not necessarily a good thing. It could mean that there’s nobody there to cry out when you can’t reach the nurse’s button (a common occurence). And TV is free. It’s not $7 per day like it is in Freo.
When a surgeon, doctor or oncologist pops their head through the curtain for 2 minutes to see how you’re going and tell you what the X-ray said, it makes you feel a bit important. But it’s not altruism. Each 2 minute visit will appear a few days later as a $65+ invoice. The private health system is not there for you – it is desgned to make money.
Some doctors aren’t even registered with HBF or Medibank – which means you simply have to pay the full bill and then claim what you can against Medicare’s recommended price sheet (the gap is much bigger when private hospital doctors charge and you end up only getting about 25% back).
Public hospital (Fremantle)
There are no bills at all when private patients enter the public system and in most cases you have to share a room with three other people. This is a good thing if, like me, you are a people person. There’s someone to talk to when there are no visitors, there’s some safety in numbers and you can compare notes on doctors. Even the uninsured don’t get billed.
In both hospitals, the quality of doctoring was exactly the same. You come out with a scar, pills and an oxygen mask and neither had wireless broadband (or even access to the internet).
So why go private?
I can’t answer this. The only difference between the two seems to be money. The $2,500 per annum (family) health insurance and the plethora of bills that come in after a short private hospital stay (most services are outsourced) are horrendous.
Being a doctor or a nurse is a really shit job. Doctors are really lawyers who can only (legally) give you bad news. We’d sue if they gave us hope and then a loved one died. “But you said only yesterday. . . ”
I’d want hundreds of thousands per annum for that job. And I’d have a big house thanks and a shiny luxury car for all the bad news I have to dish out.
Nurses? I have no idea why nurses nurse for what they get. That’s a complete mystery.
We got bills totaling over $1,500 per week for a stay at Murdoch and nothing at all from a 12 week stint in Fremantle Public Hospital. Plus Freo was fully equipped. Often people are ambulanced from Murdoch to Freo due to lack of facilities.
A thought : Why are the tallest buildings in any city insurance buildings? IMHO fairly clever “TV advertising” is why! That and a bunch of people (us) constantly being ordered to live in fear. Fear of suicide bombers, Iranians and ultimately – God’s judgment. Peace of mind isn’t cheap.
Hospital Vs. Home
There is no more that the doctors can do for Dad, so he is here – at our family home. He will probably die in the hospital bed we have set up in the living room. His breathing is erratic and he sometimes wakes up gasping for air as the lung tumors take hold. Silver Chain nurses and doctors pop in from time to time to help with meds (medication) and obs (observing vital signs). And the invoicing seems to have abated. Thanks to the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme, Dad’s meds are around $5 for a box of pills (One anti-nausea pill would have cost $150 according to the label).
But the big difference is, at home, Dad is being looked after by his family. He is regularly visited by his many friends. People who care. People who won’t be invoicing him for their check-in.
