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)