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COVID-19 Stuff Here

waiopehu oldboy

Stirling Mortlock (74)
If by "junk news" you mean Resolution 509 (November 2020), Subject:Hydroxychloroquine and Combination Therapies – Off-Label Use, Proposal the the AMA House of Delegates (a proposal by Bruce A. Scott, MD, Speaker, House of Delegates
Lisa Bohman Egbert, MD, Vice Speaker, House of Delegates (Georgia), well yes its just shit.
However, the facts are that the resolution was presented to the AMA and then rejected.
Scientist vs scientist.

Where I come from we call saying something happened when it didn't happen "making shit up". A brief scan of the page you linked suggests there's a whole heap of made up shit on that page alone. Also I'm sure if you looked hard enough you'd find some scientists willing to sign on to the "theory" that the Earth is, in "fact", a disc contained within a giant dome. Scientist v scientist?
 

zer0

Jim Lenehan (48)
Suspect these Sydney shenanigans have killed the TT bubble on the NZ side, which is perfectly fine with me personally. As far as I understand it, if the bubble existed right now, then all of NZ would be shifted to our level 2 on account of Sydney. Somehow I don't see that being popular over here. Better to just can it, wait for the vaccine to become more prevalent, and tell any bitching tourist setups to STFU, lest they get bitch slapped by the invisible hand of the market.
 

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
In short, the science is not settled.


I still love this statement - it was particularly fascinating as a mating call between climate science deniers.

Mostly, it is a throwaway bullshit statement used by simpletons who don't understand science, facts, or reality. They think it makes them look smart.

Science is never "settled". Science is an ongoing search for evidence that narrows a window of uncertainty to the point where something can be adopted. If future efforts in Science change that point, then science moves with the evidence.

HCQ is not "settled" as a cure, but I am liberal enough to allow anyone to inject, swallow, snort, or insert as much of it as they feel the need.

Darwin had a point, after all.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
If by "junk news" you mean Resolution 509 (November 2020), Subject:Hydroxychloroquine and Combination Therapies – Off-Label Use, Proposal the the AMA House of Delegates (a proposal by Bruce A. Scott, MD, Speaker, House of Delegates
Lisa Bohman Egbert, MD, Vice Speaker, House of Delegates (Georgia), well yes its just shit.
However, the facts are that the resolution was presented to the AMA and then rejected.
Scientist vs scientist.


It is not those people who proposed this. They are the people at the AMA House of Delegates who listened to the proposal (and ultimately rejected it).
 

Slim 293

Stirling Mortlock (74)
Fuck me, it’s December and FF (Folau Fainga'a) is still pushing Trump’s snake oil conspiracies.........
 

Kenny Powers

Ron Walden (29)
That is a fairly large claim across a fairly broad field. I reckon the CFMEU would be better in a pit fight.

It takes months to see a specialist, in a supply and demand world you supply more specialists. Granted it takes a long time to train up a specialist but the problem has been around for decades. Not sure what the motivation is for not supplying enough specialists but in other areas of society supply finds its equilibrium with demand to produce the best outcome.

Also why does a person who has had cancer and needs to see an Oncologist for 10 years need to get a referral every single year for those 10 years.

As the COVID19 vaccine rolls out are we going to have debates over who can administer it only Doctors, or can nurses, pharmacies, military etc assist to speed up the roll out?

I don’t know but I reckon some of our current day health practices would bring a tear to the eye of a 1970’s wharfie.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
It takes months to see a specialist, in a supply and demand world you supply more specialists. Granted it takes a long time to train up a specialist but the problem has been around for decades. Not sure what the motivation is for not supplying enough specialists but in other areas of society supply finds its equilibrium with demand to produce the best outcome.

Also why does a person who has had cancer and needs to see an Oncologist for 10 years need to get a referral every single year for those 10 years.


It certainly takes months to see a specialist in a public hospital but largely that isn't true overall. If you want to see the best in their field a longer wait might be the case but for most, you can get an appointment within a week or two.

Like most professional fields, the existing specialists put up barriers to entry.

Referrals can be provided for an indefinite period if ongoing treatment is required. A referral expiring after 12 months is the standard but if you need to see a specialist indefinitely you should only need one referral.
 

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
It takes months to see a specialist, in a supply and demand world you supply more specialists.

That isn't the AMA's fault though, so I'm not sure what your point is.

Personally, I've never had to wait more than a month because I'm fishing where the fish are: metropolitan Sydney. That is probably the bigger issue - under-service of specialists to certain areas.

If you want to blame someone, perhaps start with our Federal government who have been playing merry hell with health funding and education funding for years, while privatising the shit out of whatever they can. No surprises really as they set fire to any form of public funding, yet astoundingly doubled the national debt before COVID even boarded a plane in Shanghai.

A few of the State Governments as well. After all, you can't get specialists up and running unless you have a working hospital system with enough capacity to train and deliver these specialists that are supposedly dropping out of the sky.

Immigration is another way to grow this area. Needs vetting to ensure they are capable of course, but we could be denying ourselves generations of motivated and worthwhile medicos, engineers, and teachers because of our ridiculously cruel offshore detention methods.


Not sure what the motivation is for not supplying enough specialists but in other areas of society supply finds its equilibrium with demand to produce the best outcome.

Clearly you haven't dealt with many tradies!

Look, maybe this is the best outcome given the limits in place. Let's not make perfect the enemy of good.

I agree with your point about the referrals but that is the metric for keeping the Medicare side of things ticking along and ensuring that those Evil Specialists aren't just gouging the system.

The main issue with rolling out the vaccine will be facility; storage at -70C will be a challenge for some pharmacies and local GPs.

Can we rely on Scott "I don't hold a syringe, mate" Morrison to implement and fund a national rollout plan via our public hospital system?
 

fatprop

George Gregan (70)
Staff member
It certainly takes months to see a specialist in a public hospital but largely that isn't true overall. If you want to see the best in their field a longer wait might be the case but for most, you can get an appointment within a week or two.

Like most professional fields, the existing specialists put up barriers to entry.

Referrals can be provided for an indefinite period if ongoing treatment is required. A referral expiring after 12 months is the standard but if you need to see a specialist indefinitely you should only need one referral.

It was 6 months to get to see a specialist as an outpatient, but 3 weeks at his rooms as a private patient
 

fatprop

George Gregan (70)
Staff member
The challenge with public healthcare is that we wold all love a system that is of Quality, Affordable & Available

But the reality we can only get two of those attributes at any one time
 

cyclopath

George Smith (75)
Staff member
The Federal Government has increased the number of specialists trained quite significantly, particularly in surgical specialties. The number in my field in the greater Sydney area has doubled in about 17 years. Sound good?
No, when you look at the details, it isn't what you'd hope.
The number of positions for specialists (talking about my specialty) in public hospitals has changed by a much smaller number than that. The funding available to get work done in public hospitals has not increased at the same pace. The limiting step in delivering surgery in public hospitals is the number of sessions available in which to operate, NOT the number of surgeons available to utilise them. My public hospital has cut sessions available over the past few years, claiming they cannot staff them, so now my wait times have increased. The public system is under-funded in this regard, not under-supplied with surgeons by and large. Public hospital outpatient clinics have been decimated in the past 20 years, hence long waits to get into one. Most hospitals don't want to provide then, rather offloading that work to specialists rooms. Insurance rates are falling so more work is now being funnelled to public hospitals, which cannot keep pace.
The referring pattern of GPs is a conundrum. Many GPs are creatures of habit and just refer everyone with a certain problem to a certain specialist, regardless of the wait time, and regardless of the quality of service provided by that specialist. So some have waiting times of months, and are not necessarily any better than anyone else. True, some will "triage" appointments, making more available sooner for insured patients, and fewer for public patients. I don't endorse that practice. But the reality is that there are plenty of specialists who can see a patient quite quickly. If you're waiting months, tell your GP, search for other specialists, and get referred to someone else. It's your right.
Long waiting times do not equate to a better level of care, more to how long someone has been established in that geographical area.
 

Brumby Runner

David Wilson (68)
Cyclo, Sydney is obviously better served than where I am. Waiting time of a couple of months to get the initial consultation for kidney and prostate cancers as a private patient, so likely to be in your field. At the time, I believe there was only one other competitor who had a similar waiting time. Fantastic surgeon.

I have a referral that expires at age 99, if I happen to get that far.
 

Up the Guts

Steve Williams (59)
Cyclo, Sydney is obviously better served than where I am. Waiting time of a couple of months to get the initial consultation for kidney and prostate cancers as a private patient, so likely to be in your field. At the time, I believe there was only one other competitor who had a similar waiting time. Fantastic surgeon.

I have a referral that expires at age 99, if I happen to get that far.
Sorry to hear that, good luck BR.
 

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
The challenge with public healthcare is that we wold all love a system that is of Quality, Affordable & Available

But the reality we can only get two of those attributes at any one time is a complex system, where the quality and availability vary; strongly impacted by governments living in a neo-lib privatisation fantasy world that can fight against education, healthcare, and climate change, while pissing away hundreds of millions on Dutton's mates, Angus' water, Worminator's OECD bid, and ScoMo's Hawaiian holidays

Fixed.
 

fatprop

George Gregan (70)
Staff member


One of the few things Bob Carr ever said that I agreed with was that he could have spent the whole of NSW's budget on health and there would still be complaints

We have a quality, affordable system, that you have to wait for (ie isn't available on demand)
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
We have a quality, affordable system, that you have to wait for (ie isn't available on demand)


Sure, but we could reduce wait times by funding it better.

The concept that we can't improve our health system is plainly incorrect. Spending the PHI rebate on healthcare rather than reducing insurance costs for higher income earners would result in a massive increase in health spending.

There's a massive difference between where our current wait times are and it being on demand.
 

I like to watch

David Codey (61)
Yep just saw that - so what we have is one group of doctors in the AMA arguing that HCQ plus zinc is beneficial in the early stages of the Wuhan Flu, and another group saying the opposite.
In short, the science is not settled.
No, it’s a nut bag that somehow got a MD degree, against thousands of eminently Qualified scientists.

a football analogy, would be they are packing the final scrum of the match, your boys are on their line, behind on scoreboard 122 to nil, and you’re telling us, it’s anyone’s game.....
 

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
One of the few things Bob Carr ever said that I agreed with was that he could have spent the whole of NSW's budget on health and there would still be complaints

We have a quality, affordable system, that you have to wait for (ie isn't available on demand)

Why have an on-demand healthcare system (whatever that looks like) that would just produce an oversupply of clinicians and support staff? Doesn't make sense to have clinics and wards sitting empty.

Nevertheless: having worked in several industries including health, IT, and energy, it is fairly true that it will cost you $X to get to a good system that is 97% of what you want, and then every 1% after that costs another $X.

Edited to remove political content by me. Yeesh the temptation...
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
Nevertheless: having worked in several industries including health, IT, and energy, it is fairly true that it will cost you $X to get to a good system that is 97% of what you want, and then every 1% after that costs another $X.


Agree with that. Coming from an engineering background has taught me that there are always trade offs and as you say getting that last few percent of performance (in any dimension - faster, cheaper, better) can be very costly. The benefit has to be pretty huge to justify it.
 
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