Health news
What price nursing?
Kevin Rudd’s massive reform gives context and urgency to our campaign in NSW to win mandated minimum staffing numbers.
The Federal Government’s National Health Reform Plan is politics on a big canvas. It is up there with the introduction of Medicare.
As with anything on this scale we need to hold off on rushing to judgement, all the more so when there is a lot of detail yet to be announced.
Pay, travel or simply give up: impossible choice for cancer patients
User pays: No public treatment on Central Coast
I’ve been part of a campaign calling for public radiotherapy facilities for the cancer patients of the Central Coast since it was launched in early 2007.
With signs cancer patients on the Central Coast are starting to give up on life-saving treatment because they can’t afford it, this campaign is more important than ever.
Can Rudd’s takeover solve our nursing shortage crisis?
As a nurse, I’m all for improving our pubic health system. I’m glad Kevin Rudd is talking about how we can fix our hospitals.
But I really wonder how changing the public health funding arrangement is going to tackle the biggest problem on the ground as I see it: the shortage of nurses.
Acute care facilities across NSW are suffering chronic staff shortages.
Our public hospitals need resources, not ‘efficiencies’
As a psychiatrist at the coalface in a NSW public hospital, Kevin Rudd’s health plan seems to me to be a lot about showing his government taking charge. But beneath the soaring rhetoric its substance fills me with foreboding.
Government backs down on wallsend privatisation
A community campaign driven by nurses throughout 2009 forced the State Government to scrap plans to privatise the Wallsend Aged Care Facility near Newcastle.
On the 21st of December last year, Deptuty Premier and Minister for Health Carmel Tebbutt announced the transfer of Wallsend Aged Care Facility to the private sector was not to happen. (view media release here)
Joy to the Ward, working over Christmas
Dressed as Christmas characters (an elf and an angel) my best mate and I delivered a woman’s baby. I’ll never forget her yelling at us “don’t you dare take your costumes off, you are delivering my baby like that.”
Yeah I have to work Christmas day, Boxing Day and New Years Eve but I’m not complaining.
For me, working Christmas is now a tradition like opening presents and fighting with my brothers. In fact I think working Christmas is something I now look forward to.
People, jobs, health should be top priorities
We need a shift of mindset. State Government – no matter what party is in office – needs to be committed to world-class public services, including health!
It’s clear we are going to face a battle over the next couple of years over the composition of the health system and the public service in general.
This will be a battle between managerialism – with its short-term expediency – and a more visionary approach that will be cost-effective but will maintain a world-class health system and public service for NSW.
Campaigns & Action
Blog Authors
- Brett Holmes's blog (3)
- Kathy Smith's blog (1)
- Louise Howell's blog (1)
- Obray Smith's blog (1)
- Tad Tietze's blog (1)
Recent Comments
- tony robinson on What price nursing?
- S Jameson on What price nursing?