In this assessment, we had to write a letter to our local member of parliament about a current situation that we feel worried about.
19/05/22
Mr Ben Morton MP
PO Box 329
Willetton
Dear Mr Morton
I am writing to you about the topic of the long waits at the Accident and Emergency (A&E) and increased waiting time for specialist treatments that have been happening for at least the last five years.
By way of introduction, my name is Joshua Witbooi and I have unfortunately been a “casualty” of this long waiting time in the A&E. The first time I experienced this was when I fractured my cartilage and there was a long wait for the team at the hospital to find a radiologist and then an orthopaedic surgeon to contribute to a consult. The waiting time for the incident was more than 5 hours.
I was again faced with an extended ER wait when I jumped into a bamboo spike. I spent 4 hours in the triage section and thankfully, the wound was not so deep that it could have resulted in amputation. I feel it is my duty to speak up as I am certain that there are more people going through more grave circumstances than this and I fear that the consequences could be catastrophic if there is no change.
The general well-being of citizens is a key responsibility of government and there are instances of health ministers having to defend why people have passed on while waiting for procedures, ambulances, and life-saving surgeries
It is well-documented that our country is going through extraordinary growth because of increased births and migration. Add to this the fact that we are currently in what is hopefully the final stages of a 1 in 100-year pandemic. Our doctors and nurses are burnt out and according to the Australian College of Nurses, this is only set to get worse. This burnout will only exacerbate the issue as there will be even fewer nurses to carry the load of an increase in the population and thereby and increase in the number of Australians accessing services. The worsening of this situation will have a direct link to an increase in waiting times.
I understand that different communities have written and spoken to you about this and to date, your lack of action or enthusiasm for this cause suggests that you do not believe that this is an issue that can directly affect your electability. Extended waits and under-resourced hospitals can have dire consequences for patients including death in catastrophic and avoidable circumstances.
It is inconceivable that in the last 5 years we have been either incapable or unwilling to find a solution to this pressing problem. If we do not start addressing these challenges now, we will continue to have the same problem in the next 5 or 10 years.
There are three main solutions which I would like to present what I believe to be the most logical for short-term, mid-term and long-term horizons.
First for the short-term, I propose that we accelerate a highly-skilled visa scheme for medical practitioners. You will certainly recall that in the early 2000’s, the mining sector addressed its skilled shortage by partnering with the government in the establishment of the skilled migration visa schemes. This resulted in a number of world-class subject matter experts moving to Australia and alleviating the skills shortage and increasing productivity which had a direct impact on profitability leading to an increase in money raised in taxes by government.
Second, is the investment in our online infrastructure to provide a stronger Tele-health solution in the medium term. Tele-health is a platform that non-critical patients can communicate and book an appointment with their doctors online and it can let people get diagnosed online and they only must get their prescriptions from the pharmacy (if they need it) instead of going to the doctors.
Lastly, the government, university and TAFE is the long-term solution. This is the most sustainable of the solutions as it will allow doctors, nurses, and allied health practitioners to undertake study at Australian institutions.
There can be many ways for this problem to be solved like people having a patient flow management system or preparing medical staff before examination, but it would not have influence because there would still be people in other areas who would have to drive minutes or hours to get to a hospital or a doctor. So, I think that one of the ways that we cannot reduce the many complaints is open more doctors or hospital in the rural areas or places without health centres.
Once again, I am asking you to please help the people who are suffering from this situation, and I am happy for all you have done for the Tangney region under your care to date. I am happy to discuss this matter further should you wish to do so.
Yours sincerely,
Joshua Witbooi