Change You Can Indulge In

By Darryl Mason

An exciting ABC News headline declaring Victory for Australians who know what is bad for them, but who give not a fuck, regardless:




Wait a sec....Okay, I'm still a plodder when it comes to screen captures. That wasn't the full headline.



Damn.

That doesn't sound like any kind of fun.

The New Poverty could be expected to take care of too many people smoking and drinking, unless they brew their own beer and wine and grow their own smokeables, and let's face it, the dedicated drinkers and smokers will do exactly that. Obesity? Toxic intakes of cheese and peanut butter are expensive, and you kind of get the feeling, watching even mild fortunes vanish, that most people will be doing a lot more walking. Very soon.

So lay off all the expensive mood-blackening ads flash-blasting our evenings with death-plagued declarations that even the few occasional relieving luxuries left for the many are actually suicidal acts for which appalling guilt is mandatory.

$500,000, And Nobody Wants It

For weeks now, a surgery in country New South Wales has been offering $500,000, in a lump sum payment, to any obstetrician, GP or anaesthetist, who was willing to relocate from the city and get to work.

Even after widespread media coverage, the southern NSW town of Temora hasn't receieved a single application from a "city based or recently qualified doctor". They are looking for a medico from the city, or one fresh out of med school, so they will not be depriving other country towns of their own rare health professionals.

When country Australian mayors and community leaders say they are struggling to find enough doctors, nurses and other professionals to keep their towns alive, they're not exagerating. So grim is the skills shortage in Australia today, that a half million dollar relocation payment goes begging :

"What it clearly shows is that there aren't the younger doctors out there with the skills and expertise willing to take on this golden opportunity," Dr Mara said.

The $500,000 would be paid on completion of a three-month probationary period, and would be on top of the successful candidate's annual salary, estimated at more than $200,000.

The town's only anaesthetist and two other doctors have left, and without a replacement the surgery has been faced with closure.

A spokeswoman for federal Health Minister Tony Abbott said the poor response to the $500,000 offer was "obviously very disappointing", but the Government "cannot force doctors to move towns".

Yes, but your government could have made sure, say, five or ten years ago, that there were enough incitements for people to study medicine and the health professions, so that this appalling shortage of medicos in rural Australia did not become a reality. Or you could at least make it easier for migrants who are already trained as health professionals, to localise, and refresh, their qualifications and take up such vital roles in the rural health services.

Mr Abbott cannot say he wasn't warned that such a skills shortage was coming. The warnings have been coming loud and strong from rural Australia for a decade that the local doctors and nurses were leaving and there was nobody to replace them.

A typical example of neglect from the Howard government, and a common one when it comes to medical/health professions and services in regional and outback Australia : Ignore a problem until it becomes an emergency, and then announce a solution that will take years to reach fruit. And wait until an election is within eyesight before you make the announcement that you're going to solve the problem.

Older Men May Need To Be Registered, "Like Cars", And Forced To Undergo A Yearly "Service"

Australian men, over 50 years old, regularly neglect their health, we are constantly told, and not enough of them undergo yearly medical check-ups.

Professor John McDonald thinks he's got a solution to that problem. Fifty-plus year old males could be registered and forced to undergo a medical every year.

But only if "attempts to change the culture" don't work first.

Medical professionals should develop a system in which once men reached 50, they should be serviced, like cars, Professor McDonald said.

“I wouldn’t want to put men in jail and I wouldn’t rush into compulsory check-ups.

Not yet, anyway.

“Before we get to the compulsory stage, we should try to make cultural changes.”

One very important cultural change could be for governments and medical authorities, and pharmaceutical companies, to stop scaring the hell out of people with endless shock-and-fear based advertising blitzes, parading endless scenarios of how likely it is that anyone over the age of 20 is going to develop chronic or terminal illnesses.

Eating healthy, getting regular exercise, enjoying close circles of friends and family, working the brain and the imagination and encouraging an optimistic, positive mind always makes for a vastly healthier society, anywhere in the world.

The first "cultural change" that needs to be made is to stop trying to convince every person over 50 that it is only a matter of time before they develop cancer.