Late evening, I am thinking about the list of internal patients. The first patient, a middle -aged man, was accepted with a “comprehensive” rash.
Since every other patient was more ill, this patient slipped in my mind and left the hospital without seeing him, and thus breaking my base.
Now, I was shocked by a horrific thought, I sent a text message to the medical colleague.
“Can the rash be measles?”
“I don’t think that …” she answered.
The pieces worry me.
In my head, I see a group of patients and employees exposed to infection. The addresses of the wonderful newspapers and public anger are swimming in front of my eyes and I am preparing to enter To the hospital again – better late.
The second text of my colleagues, “I also ran into skin diseases”, does not prove more reassuring.
You did not see measles. In fact, I saw it only once, as well, with its most fearful consequences, which disrupts encephalitis. For young doctors, measles are a “school book”, such as the scurvy or Pellagra. They will be exempt from not thinking about the diagnosis – so far.
With the outbreak of parts of the United States Hundreds of patients were affectedThe measles returned in the news. Almost all the affected people are not imprisoned, which a few have died.
Along with the reporting of measles, they are concerns about the severed American financing of public health measures that threaten to stimulate the spread of infectious diseases around the world.
Thanks to the world being a truly global village, an infection In Texas Or Tanzania can easily reach Tasmania. Given the giant contribution of American aid (and thought) to global public health, the advertisements for cuts in these endeavors have caused global trembling.
But in difficult times, I think it is also useful to understand what we can do to help ourselves, a specially related philosophy with one of the richest countries on this planet, Australia.
I usually met the public health doctor who did not collect his words as he wandered around the Victoria Victorian Valley Covid as an inevitable disaster whose indirect effects are still hesitating after five years. I had fewer comments, but to hear it is repeated in different contexts three times this week.
His words, along with reading This Gratan Institute reportI ignited my sacrifice or, honestly, my fault over the prices of society, which paid the country’s satisfaction over public health.
Everyone has a painful Kofid story and doctors have thousands but this story is symbolic for me. During one of many LockI walked to a wing to find an elderly patient who does not speak English dies alone. After drawing the morphine, I noticed that he lived locally and called his wife. The rule in that month allowed a relative to see a patient patient permanently.
The next thing I heard was that she was stopped at the entrance because while it took it to the hospital, the patient died. The second part of the “rule” was that a relative could bring a patient to die but not dead.
I still do not have the right words to describe those minutes when I pay attention from the unknown wife who holds her on the door to the body whose husband, who is still being increased to the official who expected the doctor to tell the wife.
I felt accountable, dirty and harsh. I have refused – and since I will not allow any of the terrified trainees anywhere near this job, the official has quickly retracted and the wife was allowed to enter.
I am thinking about this family to this day and I have been absorbing the series of public health department failures that experts have developed since that time.
We must have these failures. When the next health emergency strikes, Australians deserve the best. Better intelligence, better advice and more evidence -based rules with adjustment space. To avoid another disaster, we must be arrested Covering the vaccination down And combat wrong information with education.
The time to store well -trained professionals and modern infrastructure to track and analyze data and analyze it now, not in the middle of the crisis. Likewise, the social and economic determinants of health such as housing and employment are not an audio language, but rather the real issues that have been easily neglected until we start paying the price.
Of course, all of this costs money. From $ 250 billion (9.9 % of GDPAustralia spends on health, most of which go to hospitals. As a person who works in one, the amount of waste is believed to be as much A third of spendingduring Low value care It is water.
Trivial 1.8 % is spent On intermittent public health and retail initiatives, where it can be said that the greatest revenue.
The strong public health system will not maintain Australians only from the preventive conditions and can be avoided, but also to meet Australia Obligations often To its weak neighbors in the South Pacific, whose diseases can easily become our diseases.
It has long been attracted to the intellectual position and the position of my colleagues in the United States, which is why they are making these wonderful collaborators. This basic feelings and mutual respect is not about to change.
The discounts in the United States will affect public health measures on many countries, but Australia can meet this occasion with its clear vision supported by its wealth.
When doing this, we may remember the words of President Theodore Roosevelt: “Do what you can, with what you have, where are you.”
