Josh Friedheadburg

Next time you see Josh Friedheadburg smugly claim a budget back in the black, remember two things, first, it’s not! Second, spare a thought for the disabled he stole it from. The Federal Government, of which Friedheadburg is the Treasurer, has underspent the NDIS Budget by a whopping $4.6 Billion!

So next time you see someone in a wheelchair, struggling with a curb or a step, the next time you hear of a parent struggling to care for a disabled child, or how long the wait actually is for funding.

The NDIS will tell you it’s ten to twelve days, reality tells you it’s anything up to 9 months. That’s another substantial saving to the budget, but who’s paying for it. People in wheelchairs, the disabled who are housebound, those with mental health issues, who’s lives are made worse by an inhumane drive for a balanced budget.

So the next time Josh smugly claims a balanced budget, remember who paid for it!

But then spare a thought for the NSW resident, who needs to travel for the relevant specialist attention. IPTAAS, “Isolated Patients Travel and Accommodation Assistance Scheme. Who have just stopped paying the GST content of a claim. Once again leaving the patient out of pocket, another budget saving from the sick! Thanks Dominic Perrottet.

Remember also, Vicenzo Peruggia, famous for stealing the Mona Lisa. An honest thief, who went to jail for his crime.

The Isolation of ill Health

In a country with a population of twenty-five million, and a landmass of 7.692 million Square Kilometres it’s simply not feasible either economically or logistically to sustain major health facilities, duplicated in every town, city, and state. 

It would make sense to specialise say in Cardiac at Port Macqurie, maybe Neurosurgery in Coffs, Orthopaedic, say Armidale, and so on. You can’t hope to duplicate those services everywhere. 

Yes there is travel involved both for patients and families, what you need to make it work is transportation, and that's what we don’t have. I have Just returned from a stay at the Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney. The spinal unit, so unsurprisingly, my back is not good. Normally when travelling to Sydney I’ll take the overnight train, and wake up in Sydney. Why it should take best part of nine hours to travel 525 kilometres on a train in 2019, or why you can drive it three hours faster, is anyone's guess, but that’s on a good day. On a bad day, like last time, well there’s no overnight train, so day time only, due I’m told to deplenishing rolling stock, another surprise. The XPT (Express Passenger Train) ha, ha, has been running since 1982, it's almost forty years old, it's a museum piece, and it looks like it. So daytime only, that won’t get me into Sydney, in time, so I have to go a day early. So I need an additional night’s accommodation, more expense. But this just keeps getting better, the train is over an hour late into Sawtell, it’s only come from Grafton! More than two hours late into Sydney. I had arranged accommodation at the Patient / Carers facility at Royal North Shore, all closed up and secure well before the train's arrival in Sydney, never mind the cross harbour trek and walk from St Leonards Station. So I need to arouse security at the main entrance who let me in, thank you. The accommodation was great, everything you need, quiet and comfortable. 

First appointment is for an EOS scan, a scanner that keeps you vertical, it looks like a transported from Star Trek, probably with disappointment I exited still in the same place! Not available in Coffs Harbour, it takes less than five minutes. The nearest one to Coffs is Newcastle, or Brisbane. 

 Next appointment, the surgeon, not much happens other than impressing on me how much I don’t want surgery! Next appointment January, 2020. “What about the pain I ask?” Pain killers comes the answer. What is it with the medical profession these days, let's just treat the symptom! Pain is a symptom, what about treating the cause? 

 And so to the journey home. The eleven o’clock morning train out of Central will do nicely. But no, currently it’s a coach, my spine cannot endure coaches, been there done that. The alternative is the seven o’clock, which means I have to be up at 5.30am, dressed, walk to St Leonards, catch the train to Central and catch it, which I do. I cannot tell you how discussing the food is, but imagine having to chew on a croissant and that’s the good news. And so back home, the obligatory over one hour late. Then the nightmare obstacle course to file the IPTAS claim, I swear they do it deliberately, so the punters will give up and go away. And I get to do it all again next January! (if there is a train at all)

Compliant, or Complicit?

Compliant, or Complicit?

From the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare:

Older people make up a considerable proportion of Australia’s population—in 2017, over 1 in 7 people were aged 65 and over.

An interesting statistic, but is it of any use when we sit silently by impersonating compliant voters. Should we not be taking our concerns to our elected members of parliament. Is this what we worked all our lives for, to be tossed aside, rendered homeless by rising property prices, fuelled by the wealthy?

Did we compliantly pay our taxes, so the government could favour balancing the budget over the care of the disabled, simply because it’s politically expedient?

How many of us actually know the identity of the Australian Tax Office whistleblower? What did he disclose, and do we as taxpayers have the right to know, again we keep our silence just like the compliant citizens we have become.

The Afghanistan whistleblower. War is a terrible thing, killing another human being is inhuman in itself, we need to fully understand the consequences of war, and trauma faced by those sent to fight it. It’s in the public interest to know these details, unsavoury as they might be, yet the man bringing it to our attention now faces the Supreme Court, charged with five offences including theft, unlawfully giving information under the Defence Act, and disclosing information under the Commonwealth Crimes Act. This case led to an Australian Federal Police raid on the ABC's headquarters in Sydney earlier this year, which is now the subject of separate Federal Court action.

Just where did we allow “Public Interest” to be replaced by “Political interest?” What laws are our Federal Departments operating under, and whose interests are they protecting?”

Our have we become so compliant, we are now ourselves complicit? 

Riots 2019

It’s a sobering thought, from Fascism to Communism, Racism to multiculturalism, Capitalism to Socialism, everyone’s a critic.

Right now, in these cities, London, Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong, and Moscow, they’re rioting against authority, or is that Authoritarianism? In all my 69 years I cannot remember another period in history, when the world has stood against it’s governors quite so globally as today.

In London, it’s “You’re not listening to me. In Paris, “Vous n’ecoutez pas.” In Germany, “ Du horst nicht zu.” And so on. The language may change, but the meaning remains the same. Governments and our elected politicians believe they are autonomous, answerable only to themselves.

Alarmingly, here in Australia, we voted back in a government we already knew wasn’t listening to us. It seems world wide our governments are no longer answerable to us, those that voted them into office. In fact it seems it is us that answers to them. Even more alarmingly, we are dissuaded from questioning our elected politicians, news rooms raided, journalists homes raided, why? Revealing the truth. Did we, Australia, really bug the offices of the East Timorese government? If that happened, and it seems it did, do we not have the right to know? I recall a car dealer being jailed for much the same offence. Why should politicians be different?

If laws have been broken, by our Bankers, our armed forces, and yes even our elected politicians, then we have the right to know, and to make our own judgement, when choosing a bank or going to the polls.

Journalism is the corner stone of our democracy, or what remains of it. If an employee of a company behaves dishonestly he, and the company are, or should be, held to account.

We need the media to keep us informed, so we can make informed judgment. Stand up, the freedom our parents and grandparents fought for, is being eroded, by the very governments we elect. Have your say while you still can.

Leprosy

Described in the Oxford dictionary as:

A contagious disease that affects the skin, mucous membranes, and nerves, causing discolouration and lumps on the skin and, in severe cases, disfigurement and deformities. Leprosy is now mainly confined to tropical Africa and Asia.

But they're wrong. No the correct definition is in the AMA manual. That's right the Australian Medical Association, defines leprosy as “He who doth not have medical insurance.”

Sorry Doc, if you take money from Medicare to treat or consult him / her, then you treat that patient as you would any other. I have been consulting Macquarie Neurosurgery for a number of years, in relation to a spine injury sustained in a car accident.

I have always considered surgery a last resort, for when the pain became so severe, even the horror stories associated with spinal surgery, can’t be any worse. That day has come, following the five abdominal surgeries in two years, I no longer have the core strength to sustain the spine injury.

The surgeon I have been seeing does not operate under the public system. I saw him last back in May, clearly in pain. Long story short, nothing we spoke about at that meeting happened. After repeated calls, emails, finally losing my temper and becoming unpleasant a referral to Royal North Shore was sent. Except RNS didn’t have it, more detective work, a few more days, oops, gone to the wrong practice.

Nobody seems to care, after all, even a Surgeon can’t bill Medicare for a patient he’s handed over to the public system. It finally got there last Tuesday. Yesterday, Thursday, I got a phone call from the Hospital, having expected to wait 6 weeks for just a phone call, they call in 48 hours. I was stunned and made sure they understood how grateful I am. “That’s OK, we can see you need help.”

I am so pleased that I have been offered an appointment next Wednesday, the 28^th. Don’t know how long I will have to wait for the operation, but I at least have something to aim at.

I seem to have had a lot of trouble with Doctors, and Surgeons of late, I remain unimpressed with our health service especially out Minister, one Greg Hunt, who is missing in action, arrogant, narcissistic, little prick.

So Who Runs the Health Service?

Well here in Coffs Harbour we have Dr Theresa Beswick. The Coffs Clinical Network Coordinator has overall responsibility for the coordination and strategic management of all public health services of the Network from Red Rock in the north, Dorrigo to the west and Scotts Head to the south. This includes all community based services as well as the hospitals at Coffs Harbour, Macksville, Bellingen and Dorrigo. The Network Coordinator is also the General Manager of the Coffs Harbour Health Campus. But It’s not her. 

Then there’s Stewart Dowrick. For more than 25 years, Stewart Dowrick has advocated for and worked towards greater access to quality health care for communities. Appointed the Chief Executive of the Mid North Coast Local Health District in January 2011, Mr Dowrick works with the region’s clinicians and the community to provide health care through strategic and quality management. But it’s not him. 

David Weiss, he’s the First Assistant Secretary, Medical Benefits Division. He might have some control over billing, apparently not. And from my experience not much interest in it either. 

Not all is lost, there’s always the Minister for Health the Hon Greg Hunt MP, surely he has some control over his own portfolio? 

Guess again. No, after four months of excruciating pain, deteriorating health, mounting personal costs, five operations in three years, and looking straight down the barrel of two more, I have reached the inevitable conclusion that our Health Service is in fact controlled by the AMA. 

 The Australian Medical Association have got the game by the balls, as they say. If a mechanic services your car, and fails to do so correctly, it’s covered by warranty, your rights as a consumer are enshrined by law. Mechanics should join the AMA, then they could charge you for correcting their own mistakes, what a lurk! Medicare keeps paying them, irrespective of incompetence, negligence, or over servicing, they’re invincible. 

Is it not time that the medical industry operate under the same laws as the rest of us. Is it not time for the medical profession be held accountable?

Tea Bags and Totalitarianism

In today’s society, where freedom of speech is under threat.

Where freedom of movement, is under threat. Where education is homogenised into obedience, where our very structure demands compliance, where we prescribe drugs for our children to keep them quiet and compliant.

In today's’ society where our elected representatives seek to control us. To demand, and even legislate our compliance, to do as they would not be done by. No longer satisfied with eroding our freedom of speech, but now our freedom, nay our right. “To Be Heard!”

Is it any wonder then, that they choose to deprive us now of loose leaf tea. The end is coming. Be warned, beware.

This joint venture between Saten and the Americans, I refer of course to tea bags, beware they are taking over the tea section in our supermarkets as we speak. The end of loose leaf tea is nigh!

Stand up before it’s too late, before loose leaf tea vanishes before our eyes, to be consigned to history along with the free world. It’s 1984, all over again.

Why it's not Grand Central.

Perspective

No one is going to complain about getting a tax cut, those that are fortunate enough to be earning enough to pay tax.
But it’s all brought into perspective when transiting through Central Satiation Sydney. Where one is unavoidably confronted with the number of people calling this home. People living out of a bag, sleeping rough. People my age, on a pension forced onto the streets due to escalating housing and rental costs.
And the sad realisation that I have done little to voice my opinion in support of the disadvantaged. There but for the grace of God go I. Of course, it’s not just Sydney, it’s here in Coffs Harbour, but not as in your face as Sydney. It’s everywhere and becoming more and more commonplace, and we still don’t vocalise our concern at the direction of our culture.
I criticise myself for remaining silent, but then I’m in a serious exchange with the relevant ministers trying to get adequate health care, that “’m supposedly entitled to.
If all the little voices get into unison, it will become a seriously big and loud voice.
Don’t remain silent.

Train Wreck

The new Metro North West line, these barriers along the platform open in unison with the train doors, so you can't fall in front of the train. They're taking all the fun out of my work, what's an Assassin supposed to do? A gentle well timed nudge was all it took. Just wait, it will be the pedestrian crossing next, then you won't be able to run anyone down.

A Civic Duty

A Civic Duty

He was still wearing that stupid chef's hat when he came into view. It was a damp drizzly, dark night, and rear entrance of the TV studio, it was a stark and wet, almost chilling backdrop. I had him in my sights as he opened the rear door of his chauffeur driven Bentley, it was a good night for affirmative action.

This guy seemed to have 4 cooking shows a night on four different TV channels, and those that weren’t running him were running re-runs.

I had a civic duty to perform, as I gently squeezed the trigger. Oops, might have over done it a bit with the ammo, it was a lousy colour to paint a Bentley anyway, metallic lime green, I ask you, the man had no taste. For a moment his body remained in its crouched position as he was about to enter the car, but just above his shoulders it was as though a water melon had exploded, puréed one might say.

The green Bentley was the perfect backdrop, it was like salad dressing, deli style, Italian herb maybe, and as the white chef's hat came fluttering down it was like a dollop of cream on top, poetry, shear poetry. I'm an artist with an M85.

Well that's a few less cooking shows we have to endure, off to channel 9 now, the footy show is about to finish up. I've got a Kalashnikov for them. It's a dirty job I know, but be grateful there are those of us out there prepared to do our civic duty.