Money and the medical game

These are shocking statistics for a developed Western nation that is internationally recognised in medical research and invention. Our doctors are excelling in medical laboratories, but clearly failing in clinical practice.

Earlier this year, a panel conscripted to review the Laws of Negligence, including those of medical negligence, delivered a final report that mentioned the ‘patient’ only in passing in order to define the panel's written intent. Patients, as the pivotal fraction of any health-system equation, were not given any collective recognition by the panel which had been appointed by the Treasury rather than the Health Ministry.

Medicine has shrugged off the mantle of a 'compassionate vocation', and evolved into the 'health industry'; governed by the same 'bottom line – dollar sign' as every other corporate venture.

Doctors can no longer be regarded as white-coated altruists who are moved by the will to heal; they have become shrewd and aggressive shareholders and investors. They view their patients as potential enemies in litigation, and consequently practise lower risk 'defensive medicine'. As a result, patients are not necessarily being offered the full and optimum choice of available medical options.

This is band-aid medicine.

Yet neither the government nor the health-care industry has pointed out that a national reduction in the incidence of avoidable medical errors would naturally lead to a national reduction in the incidence of medical litigation.

Our State and Federal Governments, intimidated by the medical fraternity's recent show of muscle, have scuttled new liability legislation through their parliaments post-haste. This legislation effectively disables the rights of the majority of injured patients to seek fair judicial and financial accountability through the courts. Neither they, nor the Treasurer's Panel to Review the Laws of Negligence have recommended any strategies or financial provision for the implementation of new comprehensive patient safety and risk management initiatives.

Australian medicine bears the shame of demonstrating the worst statistical incidence of avoidable medical injury in the entire world – and yet we are one of the few remaining developed countries that does not have a dedicated national patient safety day, or week.

It seems that the injured patients alone realise that money can' t buy good health. And now they exist within a health care system in dire need of a ' heart ' transplant.

And the future for the "Business of Health Care?"

It's all "in the bank!"