Isolation

Isolation

Isolation? How tough is it, if you've lost your job, it’s tough, and probably worse to come. My heart goes out to you.

For a writer, photographer, a racing driver. All things you do on your own. Add to that, I’ve always been something of a loner, it’s OK. A few adjustments. There’s no motor racing, so that’s out. There’s no travel, so no Opera House tour of Europe. That wasn’t on this year’s agenda anyway. All of which means less expenditure. So this has become the year of the house.

I’ve done damage to the credit card at Bunnings. Stocking up on materials for the next few projects. Look at it this way, I’m doing my bit to keep the economy ticking over. So I’m reading researching, writing, editing, and home projects.

The big question is. “Do I need to go out.” The only thing I regularly run out of is fresh bread. Answer, buy a breadmaker. Now I have 12 kilos of bread flour and way too much yeast. I shan’t need to buy bread for a few months! Of other household items? Well I’ve always made it a practice to have an “Unbroken” pack of all things I regularly consume. Soap, toothpaste, bleach, tea, rice, tinned stuff. I use long life milk to make yoghurt so I have plenty of that. About 2 dozen eggs. The irony is, there is no shortage of fresh food. Toilet paper you ask? Well I have two toilets, so I always keep an unbroken pack upstairs, and another one downstairs.

I have a medical appointment next week, so I’ll have to go out for that. Sadly I don’t have enough melon to last me until then. (Rock melon please). I’m using less fuel, and the dishwasher well that looks like being about every 8 days, without visitors.

My take? The next time you complain about what they are teaching our kids at school, look back at yourself. It wasn’t our kids who bought all the toilet paper!

Lotus. For those who know the difference.

Eric Abetz

Eric Abetz 

I’ve always held the view, that if you don’t think you are going to like the answer, think twice before asking the question. Not our Eric, why oh why, if you were a sane moderately intelligent Liberal, would allow Abetz on a committee? Where could you find a more stupid person, a greater liability to your cause? 

Workers are overpaid, dole recipients overpaid, politicians, apparently not. Opposed to same sex marriage, wants to beef up Religious protection laws. Oh and let's just get this question right, it may go down in history! “No ineligible project or application was funded.” Of all the inept questions we have heard from politicians over the years, that one is way up there on the list, what an absolute effing idiot. And so are we, we’re paying his wages.

Bridget Mckenzie

Come on, how stupid do you think we look. That’s right, us the voter.

Do you seriously expect us to believe that no one else knew. That Bridget Mckenzie, disappeared to her office and conjured up this wonderful plan to appropriate Sports Grants to favoured marginal electorates. Or is a staff member about to take the fall, and it was all done in secret. Come on, what do you take us for. That may be the most insulting thing of all, treating the voters like idiots.

Angus Taylor

Angus Taylor

There can be few bigger wastes of space in Canberra than Angus Taylor. 14.2 million on domestic travel! How believable is that, yet he makes the accusation in Federal Parliament, apparently without even checking the accuracy of his information. Please note this is the Minister for Energy and Emission Reductions ! The behavior of Angus Taylor is so inept, so steeped in stupidity, he should be frog-marched out of Parliament. People that stupid should not be permitted in the chamber.

14.2 Million, when the real figure was $229,000. Did he not expect that someone might not pick up an almost 14 million discrepancy, how can anyone be that stupid.

Currently as Australia burns, Mr Taylor has found a convention fire shelter in which to hibernate, Scott Morrison is rumored to be holding the key. This guy’s Ministerial title includes “Emission Reductions”

Liar, Liar, Pants on fire. But seriously what does it take to get the richly deserved sack!

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?