We just don’t have enough of them, and frequently we are forced to make decisions on who really needs the ventilator, and that is really a tough decision for a doctor to make. – Queen Elizabeth Hospital consultant head of internal medicine Dr Anne-Marie Hassell.
CLEARLY, IT CANNOT CONTINUE to be business as usual at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH). For if we are to be moved by the lamentations of chief executive officer Dr Dexter James, reform of thinking is crucial – and urgent.
At the top of Dr James’ worries is the shrinking of the donor aid the hospital was accustomed to, which when juxtaposed against the “widening gap between the hospital’s recurring expenditure and the budget being allocated” presents no bed of roses. Unless something is done to address our financing of health care, we run the risk of eroding all the gains made over the past decade, as it might mean having to scale down services.
Staring us in the face is the ugly spectre of not being able to boast much longer of free national health care for all.
Added to all this is the new development of “a lot more older patients” needing “greater intensive care, as well as machines that become obsolete and need to be replaced” – often urgently.
The hospital’s consultant head of paediatrics Dr Clyde Cave, revealing that another ten or so incubators are needed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, for example, did make an unorthodox but in the circumstances practical call: let the very public whom the hospital serves help. If we cannot have the giant benefactors donating funds for the purchases of these essential pieces of equipment, then why not instead community groups, societal groups, fund-raising foundations and the like showing and delivering charity for the common good?
It takes millions a month to pay for our modern hospital care. It is therefore imperative that where each and every one of us can contribute to the larger good that we do.
No greater contribution for some of us will be in living a healthy life ourselves. It is not enough to have a “better” health insurance system. Much of our health care dollars is spent on patients with one or more chronic conditions, many of which could have been prevented. These cases of illnesses or chronic diseases which can be prevented or simply controlled need not mushroom into crises for families and close friends – and the nation at large.
And while we are on care, we may need to rethink too our love for fellowman. Our suffering ones surely need more than health insurance. We should be very generous with tax credits.
Did someone somewhere proffer the idea of giving tax credits for money spent on medical care for oneself – or fellowman?
