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Tuesday, 15 January 2008

Crikey Says

Therese Rein has gallstones.

“Ms Rein has taken the advice of her doctors and will have these removed in a routine surgical procedure later this week at the Mater,” the spokesman said.

It’s here of course that Ms Rein, multimillionaire spouse of the Prime Minister, is fortunate: she can afford private health care and the post operative consolations of the Sisters of Mercy at Brisbane’s Mater Hospital. Her troublesome gallstones will be here today, gone early next week.

The reality is rather different in the public sector. This from one south Queensland GP this morning:

“I’ve got one case of gallstones who’s been waiting on surgery for three months. That’s par for the course. One of two things happen to these patients: they either sit on the waiting lists until their gall bladder rots … then they’re an emergency and they get treated right away. Otherwise they wait months till their number comes up.”

In Canberra the country’s health ministers sit with the federal Treasurer, pondering waiting lists and how much money it will take to cut them. In Brisbane, the wife of the Prime Minister sidesteps the process through a well-targeted injection of private funding. Timing.

4 Comments

  1. Gail
    Posted Tuesday, 22 January 2008 at 11:03 pm | Permalink

    Another possibility. I elected to have my cancer surgery and treatment in the private health system, even though I was offered treatment in the public system due to the particular diagnosis. I wanted to ensure that my place went to someone that needed it.

  2. Austin
    Posted Wednesday, 16 January 2008 at 12:27 am | Permalink

    Dear Marilyn,
    No, personally I wont get over it. I beleive that for something as basic as medical care, in a country as rich as Australia, nobody should get second class treatment.
    Peace.

  3. Marilyn
    Posted Tuesday, 15 January 2008 at 2:04 pm | Permalink

    Will you get over it? People don’t give a toss if other people have private health care. It is when they have it and then clog up the public system that is the problem.

    I don’t recall complaints when Cynthia Bucket had private care for cancer.

  4. Justin Larkin
    Posted Wednesday, 16 January 2008 at 9:14 am | Permalink

    Excuise me!? Which political party decided to strip money out of the public system and hand it to privateers and to blackmail australians into funding the failed private insurance system? How is this Terese Rein’s fault?