Our Pathetic Health System

My mother is suffering from knee pain for over 2 years and counting. She is on the wheelchair and has lost mobility of both her legs. Her quality of life has declined severely over the years.

She was placed on the list for surgery by her GP and has been moved into the list for knee surgery replacement in the past year & a half through St Vincent Hospital.

She was determined alnimic - severely low on red blood cells before the surgery could begin.

It has been over 6mths and she still hasn't had her surgery. Her cells are better including iron. Now in few weeks she has another review with surgeon F2F. She cannot travel and has been told there is no patient transport available. She will need to use a taxi that accommodates a wheelchair.

St Vincent are making her jump through hoops and dragging the process to conduct the knee surgery.

We cannot afford private health care and are been dragged through the govt health system.

What can we do please ozbargainers. I dearly need advice please đŸ™đŸ».

Comments

    • -6

      Hi,

      The process you have addressed has been actioned prior. This is her 3rd appointment with the surgeon. In fact, we are told a new surgeon will review her case. Travel is difficult for my mum. She turns 70 in Aug. She is ailing further. All the questions mentioned have asked previously from our end.

      Due to alnimic condition, the process is prolonged and prolonged. Here is a question. If your in an severe car accident, suffered severe knee injury and are alnimic, will the surgery still go ahead?

      • +16

        Due to alnimic condition, the process is prolonged and prolonged. Here is a question. If your in an severe car accident, suffered severe knee injury and are alnimic, will the surgery still go ahead?

        I'm assuming you mean anemic. Unfortunately her knee condition isn't life threatening, having surgery while anemic is. In your example I don't believe surgery would proceed for the same reason. They'd only proceed with surgery if the immediate threat to life was greater than the threat due to the anemic condition.

        I can understand your frustration but it sounds like things are proceeding, just slowly. The upcoming review should find the surgery can now proceed and it'll be scheduled.

  • +14

    Are you saying your mum doesn’t stand at all? That’s quite unusual for arthritis (the usual reason for knee replacement). Most wheelchair users transfer into a regular car seat and put the wheelchair in the back of the car. There shouldn’t be any issue with using a taxi presuming it’s a folding wheelchair.

    If your mum is over 65 she is likely eligible for CHSP which includes subsidised transport and can be accessed via my aged care https://www.myagedcare.gov.au/help-at-home/commonwealth-home
 She might also be able to get a carer to attend the appointment with her if that’s an issue. By the sound of it she could likely benefit from a range of services and it might be worth getting an ACAT assessment of over 65.

    I would look into getting your mum some physio as well. If she’s not walking at all she would be really deconditioned which would impact on the success of the surgery. Pain is from the joint if it’s arthritis, , but the muscles around the joint need to be used for her to improve her function after the surgery. They’ll generally only do one knee at a time (not in all cases though), so she’ll need to get moving to get the benefit from the surgery. She will still have pain whilst going through all of this, so I would get some advice on living with chronic pain. If she avoids pain by avoiding movement, the surgery won’t help her. The mantra with arthritis is ‘move it or lose it’. If she doesn’t start exercising and weight bearing she’ll end up having falls and getting osteoporosis etc, irrespective of the surgery.

    Anyway, what you’ve described sounds pretty normal for public elective surgery. And it seems reasonable that the surgeon won’t operate when she’s anaemic. Now she’s better it seems very reasonable that the surgeon reviews her before deciding whether and how to proceed. Going to an outpatient appointment prior to surgery is not jumping through hoops, it’s completely normal and would occur in the private system also.

  • +1

    How do you know who’s before her on the list?

    Should we bump the person needing a kidney transplant & free up that theatre room for your mum?

      • +3

        Import from where? Every developed country is having the same issues and how many extremely high skilled drs want to come to a country where house prices and cost of living is insanely high?

        We need overseas workers to fill the low skilled jobs as not enough Australians want to fill the jobs as they pay crap and can barely get by

        • -3

          Well then we should be putting a lot of effort into importing workers to build houses and apartments and the materials to do it. If it takes two years to import a shit load of wood and steel or whatever, then there's no time like the present, put the order in now.

      • Maybe we should be importing knee surgeons into the country instead of people to take jobs that our own teenagers used to do

        You're gonna love the Federal Governments immigration reform. Unskilled labour spots are extremely limited.

          • @AustriaBargain:

            Sure some unskilled jobs we don't have enough people to do it, but if we give up nearly all these kinds of jobs to cheap immigrants then where are our own young people meant to work?

            I mean, I don't even know which jobs these young Australian's are missing out on.

            Which industry are you concerned about? Because in hospitality, majority of businesses are screaming for workers.

          • +7

            @AustriaBargain:

            we give up nearly all these kinds of jobs to cheap immigrants then where are our own young people meant to work?

            This is just wrong. You've been reading too much Sky News… "immigrants" aren't here stealing jobs, they are bought here because our "teenagers" don't want to work in those jobs. The only jobs a majority of "immigrants" are "stealing" are the menial, shit, low paid shit jobs.

            Every cleaning service, every pub, club and bar and every storage/warehouse jobs in my area are screaming for people. They will take anyone they can get. They all pay WAY above the minimum wage, yet they still cant get workers. I know of a club in my area that had to close part of their establishment because they literally could not get workers, at all. They were offering about $30~$35/h for simple coffee, cake and sandwich type cafe work. Double time sat and sun. They finally reopened last month after about 18 months closed with workers they sourced from overseas, why? because they could no find anyone locally who wanted to do it.

            So no, "immigrants" are not "stealing" the jobs of "Australian teenagers"… Teenagers don't want to work these jobs. They want nice, AC office jobs that pay $100,000+/year or they want jobs as "social media influencer" or "Twitch streamer" or "ShitTok content creator". Hardly any of them want to be some cog in a gigantic machine at some mega-corp employment farm run by some narcissistic, micro-managing douche canoe.

            Foreign workers in low skilled, menial jobs are not stealing shit. They are doing the work that local people usually think is beneath them.

              • +5

                @AustriaBargain: Ahh that's the issue, they just need better ads and marketing for these jobs. Spread the word, problem solved!

              • +3
              • +2

                @AustriaBargain: Or have you considered maybe it's only the immigrants that're willing to work? I have a lot of friends in hospo and some are cafe owners and I can tell you yes there are absolutely some trash tier owners that cheats employees but also a lot of good employers having to deal with sh!t workers. The number of people some of my mates' hired/try to hire either don't even bother showing up to interviews or just randomly decided they're not coming into work anymore right after they're hired is insane or just absolutely clueless and they pay properly and treat their staff well too.

                To give you another example a good mate of mine works for Coles Distribution as a supervisor (himself worked his way up from the bottom feeding picking jobs) and he said when he used to be on the floor there'd be this South American guy working like 60+ hours a week picking up every shift he can because none of our local workers can be (profanity) working (even with really good penalty rates IIRC something like $60/hr) and when asked why he said the job is easier than anything he had to do back home while making the kind of money he could only dream of so why wouldn't he pick up those hours.

                Also today on the internet: https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/young-aussie-re


                • -3

                  @basketballfreak6: Oh no, Australians dare ask for a four day work week, better import a million immigrants who are desperate to work 60 hour weeks then!

                  • +2

                    @AustriaBargain: So what do you propose if businesses need workers to fill jobs but no one wants work? Genuine question.

              • +1

                @AustriaBargain: Better pay then means increase in costs for whatever services or goods they offer - and people already complaining on the costs of stuff.

              • +2

                @AustriaBargain:

                instead of those menial employers making their work more attractive to young people, marketing the jobs to them
                advertise them better, pay a bit better

                WTF are you taking about?? It's a job, making coffees, cutting cakes and minimal food prep. It's also $10+ PER HOUR more than minimum wage and up to $70/h on weekends. There is no night shift. There is no afternoon shift. It's quiet, easy work… Just what more marketing do you think they needed? How many "teenagers" do you know who are getting more then $70/h for a few hours working on a weekend?

                The warehouse jobs are the same. $30 to $40/h, plus shift loadings, plus weekend loadings. Positions for 7am-3pm and early knock off fridays. No heavy lifting. Just signing in and packing away deliveries or picking and packing parts for workshops. Just how much more "marketing" do you think they need? Whatr advertising is wrong here? Pay a bit better? It's almost double the minimum wage for an unskilled job.

                We cant get apprentices at work. We offer them almost as much as fully qualified tradesmen. Almost every other mechanical business in this area cannot get staff even though the job is good, you learn a lot, dont have to deal with customers face to face (so no Karen interactions). What "marketing" are we doing wrong?

                I have mates who own their own building companies who cannot hire labourers. No one wants to walk around with a broom or a vacuum cleaner or to get an air hose or a battery from the back of a ute or to hold up few sheets of gyprock. Most of these places are paying almost double the award wage with VERY generous overtime/weekend rates… Pray tell, what "marketing" are they doing wrong?

                Again, get your head out of Sky New's arse. This isn't an "iMMiGrAnTz ArE StEaLiN' oUr KiDz JoRbZ!" issue, but more so a "I want to be a social media influencer when I grow up" issue.

                • @pegaxs: Maybe in Sydney, but in Adelaide working in a cafe does not pay $10+ on top of minimum wage.

                • +2

                  @pegaxs: Mate 100%.

                  I don't know if it's because of the fact that we're geographically so far away from everyone else in the world so we're in this bubble and we only see what mainstream media wants to show us but it truly astounds me that we as Australians don't appreciate what we have compared to so many other countries around the world. The fact that here in Australia an unskilled person has the potential to earn more money than someone with an education and we have a system in place to support not just someone going through hardship but literal dole bludgers and we're still crying and complaining about how unfair life is crazy.

                • -3

                  @pegaxs: Have all these businesses mandated the jab?

          • +3

            @AustriaBargain: I know many Aussies who would rather leech off Centrelink and the taxpayer rather than work as an Uber driver or other jobs that's 'beneath' them. Either that or they think they deserve $60 an hour for a minimum wage entry level job

            • +2

              @subwoofer: Exactly this. Typical AUSSIES mentality. If in doubt, go to Centrelink. Lol

          • +3

            @AustriaBargain: There's no shortage of jobs for young people. Go to any cafe or mall and there are signs up about how they need workers.

            Plus I'm pretty sure you'll find the people who are "immigrants" in your mind are students or people working a second job for some extra cash. We're not bringing in immigrants specifically to work in those jobs.

            • @freefall101: Well partners of students too. Talked to a few and they want to go back home after done studying, partner wants to stay, meanwhile they are basically domestic servants to their partner so have to wonder why they are partners in the first place.

              • @AustriaBargain: Sounds like a them issue, not an immigration one. They’re only allowed to work 48 hours a fortnight too as a spouse of a student and need to show funds.

                • @freefall101: I guess there's no way to know what's going on with any of the partners that come here. And probably not our right to judge their culture and their circumstances of their arrangements. Saw as special on ABC about arranged marriages in India and the Indians themselves explained it in a way as if it's a good system, like a convenience. I didn't buy it, but what do I know. Seems like any guy or gal could love bomb the person they are arranged with and then what, they get married and are obliged to stay with each other indefinitely? Sounds busted to me.

                  • @AustriaBargain: Not sure to what level we're bringing in the unhappy spouses of students to steal the jobs of teenagers instead of knee surgeons, but I enjoyed the wild ride of your train of thought here.

            • -1

              @freefall101: "We're not bringing in immigrants specifically to work in those jobs"

              Yeah we are.
              A company I used to work for was bringing in 457 "skilled" workers. 9 out of 10 had no skills and fake certs. Company was also paying for their accommodation and same pay rate as existing workers.
              Which put a huge toll on the existing workers to pickup the slack.
              There was a mass exodus. The company continues to limp along at near death.
              They learnt a valuable lesson on taking care of the staff you have.
              Although they have changed their ways they can't get the staff back!
              (was in hospitality)
              I have nothing against the people they hired. Some of the best people I've ever worked with. And I'm super happy for them as they are now back home, retired and set for life.
              The average YEARLY wage they were making in their country was $5000. Here they were clearing $1800 per week. With NO bills.

              If you told the young kids here that they could travel to a nice, civilized, clean, safe country with no skills a fake cert free food, accommodation AND bank over a million $$ for the year you'd have a line out the door.

              • +1

                @nizzkid: 457 Visas haven’t existed for 6 years. I also hope you reported them, one company breaking the law doesn’t mean much though, unless no one is calling them out.

                Also, why would you illegally bring people in, wearing the cost and time of doing so, only to pay them the same and give additional accommodation? That makes no sense.

                • @freefall101: Can't really say the company did anything illegal. As long as they had the paperwork they have covered their arse.

                  And yeah I agree it was a monumentally stupid decision to "essentially" pay them more than the existing staff. While making those staff have to carry them.
                  It only takes one stupid manager trying to make a name for themselves to bring down a company.
                  I guess they thought they could take advantage of them by making them work extra hours for free maybe?

      • +6

        Why is it every time you announce a take on something it singles you out as the least suitable person to comment on it?

        How is that even possible, even stopped clocks are right twice a day

      • This is a good point, however for orthopaedic surgeons in particular, the college makes it very hard for overseas trained doctors to qualify and when they do some departments are notorious for being unwelcoming to overseas trainee doctors. I can’t verify this for sure but I’ve heard from multiple sources that overseas trained orthopaedic surgeons are not treated as favourably in recruitment processes and have a hard time being accepted by their Australian trained peers. The other rate limiting factor is theatre time, beds (both ortho and ICU) and budget. You can only get through so many cases in a week. Also most hospitals don’t have seperate trauma and elective theatres, so elective surgeries can get bumped for new injuries coming in. It’s definitely a complex problem and the reason I have private health insurance.

      • +1

        Plenty already cleared customs..maybe look at removing barriers imposed by the old guard.

  • +7

    It can be slow when your condition is not serious, but we have one of the better healthcare systems in the world. Saying otherwise is extremely entitled.

    You're not going to go bankrupt going into hospital like in America, and if it's serious you will be treated quickly unlike other places where the healthcare just can't cope or isn't good enough.

    That said, sorry about your mum; it sounds like a tough situation. I hope she gets better soon.

  • -1

    There is nothing you can do but grind away at the gears of the public system.

    if the anemia is chronic she may never be able to get the surgery, as it is considered life threatening.

    When someone is in that age range doctors know its just a matter of time, even if quality of life is slightly increased they prefer to do surgery on young people who have their life ahead of them, although the doctor will never admit this.

  • -1

    Give her a tibial plateau fracture and they might do a replacement instead of an ORIF.

  • +3

    The issue appears to be the anaemia. Without a decent blood count, surgery is a major risk and recovery prospects poor.
    Whilst the pain issue associated with advanced arthritis of the knees can be severe, it sounds as if your mother's surgical risk profile has delayed things.

    As to the immobility, this will have a profound affect on the recovery. Knowing people who have had knee replacements, those who were inactive, had a prolonged period of recovery, continued to complain of pain and did not attain full mobility. Those who remained as active as possible up until surgery had much better results.

    • +2

      The issue appears to be the anaemia

      That makes sense. I can't believe it took this long for someone to use the correct spelling. The OP's version is a classic.

  • -8

    Welcome to Victoria, the public health system is broke and is going to get (a lot) worse after Pallas drops his budget cutbacks next month

    • Not my experience mate.

      • You are in the minority and should consider yourself lucky.

        • Rubbish mate. Most people have good experiences with our medical systems. You want to tell me about your poor experiences?

          • -8

            @try2bhelpful: For a start I am not your "mate", and secondly it is none of your business

            • +3

              @Ocker: So you are claiming something you can’t back up.

              • +1

                @try2bhelpful:

                So you are claiming something you can’t back up.

                Not sure if you've noticed, but that's pretty much how most of the internet works these days :)

                • @SBOB: Ya ain’t wrong there.

                  • @try2bhelpful: I'll provide my own example of the Victorian health system, which is still significantly better than some other states including my own.

                    After waking up in the ICU following 10+ hour surgery one of the two nurses monitoring me absolutely lost his shit at me because I was incapable of coughing properly. Literally yelling in my face about how I'm intentionally trying to piss him off. It's not like the code blue earlier played any role in it.

                    Later in the ward there was a diabetic patient that was denied his medication and ended up needing blood transfusions among other things. A room of 6 patients that normally had 3 nurses only had 1 nurse that night due to staff shortages. A nurse fresh out of Uni that had never worked in a ward before. We were lucky a doctor doing the rounds had walked in.

                    That's only me as a patient and not me working in a hospital. Don't get me wrong I don't hate the Victorian Health system at all and I know this can happen anywhere. If anything it's a good example of how dangerous staff shortages are. In this case it was around the time of the Melbourne Cup.

                    • @Clear: I’m not saying things don’t go wrong, and these things shouldn’t have happened, but overall it is a very good system. There will be far, far more with positive outcomes than negative ones.

                      I do agree we need more staff but, as you said, that is happening everywhere. Until we have more staff available to hire, which either takes more people trained, (which takes time), or more trained people brought in as immigrants (which triggers the anti immigration mob), all the states are stuck. This needs Federal intervention because otherwise the States will just cannibalise each other.

                      I’m just sick of the bullshit negative political comments some people make and pretend it is everyone’s reality.

                      • @try2bhelpful:

                        I’m just sick of the bullshit negative political comments some people make and pretend it is everyone’s reality.

                        They could re-hire all those people of morals & integrity in the "healthcare" system who resigned, were let go, or resisted the unreasonable jab mandates.

                        But I suspect that wasn't the point, the authorities wanted to weed out dissenters & people of integrity so that only meek yes men & women would remain in the "healthcare" system.

                        • @mrdean: I think you underestimate the people left in the health system.

                          • @try2bhelpful:

                            I think you underestimate the people left in the health system.

                            I don't think so. They should of stepped up & said no.

                            • +1

                              @mrdean: You, obviously, have never worked in an organisation like that.

  • +6

    I'm elderly.

    I understand that doctors, and the medical system generally, can't perform miracles.

    When you get old more and more of your body doesn't work as well as it used to. Everything affects everything else. And when that's what the medical system has to work with, it can't produce ideal results. Just, hopefully, better results than no medical system would.

    You can't expect doctors to do complex procedures on someone who has other medical conditions that would risk the success of the procedure and the health and life of the patient.

    • +8

      Exactly!

      My wife and I have had joint replacements, and I'm about to get my left hip replacement replaced after 14 years, so have a bit of knowledge about this.

      A fellow old fart mate of mine was told that major operations like joint replacement are a severe shock to the system, and he needed to get his blood iron levels into the normal range before the surgeon would risk the operation to replace his hip.

      He did and went back to the surgeon who did the operation the next week.
      How did he get it done so quickly?
      Because, like us (and we gave up a lot when we were both out of work so that we could afford it), he pays for private health insurance.

      And how about you put your hand in your pocket and pay for your mother's taxi fare?

      FWIW, I have lived and worked in Europe, Africa, South America and the USA and can tell you that we Aussies have a fantastic free public health system, so have no patience for whining threads like this.

      Rant mode <OFF>

      • -1

        major operations like joint replacement are a severe shock to the system

        It may be a little off-topic here, but you might have seen the Queensland research a couple of weeks ago that argued there isn't any such thing as "long COVID" in the sense that COVID is not unique in requiring time to recover. Every serious infection or medical incident results in damage and requires time to recover, and where people are fragile that can take a long time, or they never recover.

  • +1

    Thank you all for your comments & suggestions. 2am in the morning writing this post. Apologies for the term alnimic , yes it should read anaemia. Thanks for the correction.

  • +7

    As others have mentioned, by the sound of things the issue is as much to do with the anaemia making it dangerous to operate. If the doctors are making that assessment then it is good healthcare, not bad healthcare. Bad healthcare would be putting somebody's life at risk for the sake of a knee operation.

    "Pathetic" is a pretty harsh term. Take a look around the world and try to find many countries with better public healthcare than we have. You might find a few, but not many. It's not perfect, but it's better than the vast, vast majority of other countries. As for getting "dragged through the govt health system", go try your luck getting better public healthcare anywhere else and let us know how you go. If it was something urgent and life threatening then it would be a higher priority. My wife had a stroke 5 years ago - the public hospital system is the only option for that and we have absolutely no complaints about the care she received. This is partly why I don't complain about taxes - because they pay for this kind of thing.

    There are a hell of a lot of people in a hell of a lot of countries that would love to have the opportunity to get "dragged through" a public health care system like we have. I don't know if it's just an Australian thing or if it's the same everywhere, but people seem to love to whinge no matter how good they've got it. Usually because they don't know how good they've got it.

  • You can also write to your local Federal member of Parliament and ask for Medicare to be better funded. If enough people do this we might eventually see more investment in 'elective' surgeries and less reliance on having private health for this kind of thing.

  • +1

    Hi OP, unfortunately you have to wait. I am working as a Manager in Aged Care for 8 years now and been dealing with RPA, Concord, Canterbury and Balmain, some of my residents have been waiting for their elective surgery for years now. They won't attend it unless it is life threatening such as Blood clot on the leg/s, gangrene, or Cancer. Even most of my residents who have their Private insurance, they still have to wait for months and even years. All the best and do not worry too much. She will be alright. Buy Oxygen pulse oximeter if you are worried about her anemia. You can always send her to ED if her Oxygen is dropping for possible blood transfusion.

  • +10

    My first thoughts are that OP complains about 'pathetic' health system when his mother who is 'only' 70 is wheelchair bound and anaemic.
    People need to take responsibility for their health and not depend so much on the public healthcare system to patch them up if the reasons are in some part due to neglect. How did your mother come to be so anaemic? Clearly she is not following a healthy diet. Sitting in a wheelchair is the worst possible way of dealing with arthritis. Why isn't she getting physiotherapy? Using an exercise bike? Doing aqua aerobic classes (usually provided cheaply by the local council for seniors). I think you could be intervening to actively improve your mother's health in ways that don't cost a whole lot of money instead of complaining about a world class public healthcare system that other people's taxes pay to provide for you.

    • Don't know why you were negged for giving good advice.

      I just balanced out the neg.

    • +1

      How did your mother come to be so anaemic? Clearly she is not following a healthy diet.

      Obviously everyone's circumstances are different but in my case I've become anaemic very easily after having half of my small intestine removed. I eat a very iron rich diet but the parts most responsible for nutrient absorption simply aren't there. Infusions are the only way.

      It means I have to deal with a day or 2 of flu like symptoms in exchange for not wanting to sleep 24/7.

  • What about paying upfront or getting PHI?

    If you're at that stage of your life PHI would be a must.

    HOW GOOD IS A 2 TIERED SYSTEM!

  • +3

    Jesus Christ, your mum has complications that made the process longer and more difficult, its not her fault.

    However, do you expect the system to have to cater for ALL your needs?

    Do we need to provide a private chauffer to and from appointments as well as pay for all the medical costs?

  • +7

    I hate when taxpayers pay to fix my ailments for free, and surgeons make sure I'm fit for surgery rather than operating on me when I'm anaemic so I die on the table. So annoying.

  • Legit speaking what do you expect the system to do for her? your mothers condition is not urgent there are legit 1000s of people who are being treated for cancers, strokes, cardiac arrests etc every week

    add in other preventable but urgent emergencies ie drug over-dose, car accidents or other severe truma etc

    the system can 'only' do so much and from what it sounds like the medical team have made the right call so far

    if you want a 'faster' service go private? or you should have private health insurance…..i kind of read this like the standard idiot post 'i dont have insurance but ran into a Merc AMG what do i do' post

    Your mother is 70 she will have health issues all of us who are lucky to make it that far will, you dont have PHI which is fine but you also dont have any savings incase of a rainy day in this case wanting to not wait on the public waitlist.

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