Health inequalities are no surprise: Gavin Mooney

Professor Gavin Mooney writes:

Thanks Mark Ragg for providing more evidence that the Australian health care system is unfair. This needs to be said again and again and again. The only thing that is surprising here is that Mark is surprised.

Of course the richer more articulate middle classes with English as a first
language get better, faster care!

Access for others is often a real problem and I do not mean issues of finance. In WA a study a few years ago showed that Aboriginal patients (those who got to hospital – and many don’t) then got low cost nursing care compared to a non Aboriginal cohort with similar conditions who got higher cost, more technological care.

A more personal example: working class friends with English as a second language simply do not like to complain when a loved one’s clothes are lost and she is poorly looked after. Again an 82 year old woman of my acquaintance does not know where to turn to get information about the care of her husband who has had a stroke and has dementia.

Yes, these are anecdotes but this sort of thing goes on day in day out in the Australian health service and MUST affect outcomes.

But surely, I thought, everyone in the system knows this? From Mark’s reaction to his findings and other comments on his piece it seems that maybe they don’t….