The Great Australia Party (GAP) believes that all Australians have a right to a high standard of health and hospital care. We support the development of an equitable, efficient and high-quality care system that is accessible to all Australians regardless of means, with Medicare and Public Hospitals funded by our proposed new tax systems and reinstatement of public hospital boards.
States have the primary responsibility for the provision of health services; however, decisions by the federal government and allocation of tied grants, have a direct impact on Health issues. As Australians age they will place increasing demands on the health services. There will also be a greater demand for nursing home and hostel accommodation. As technology is advancing with great rapidity, new investigative and corrective procedures are arriving on the medical scene. Litigation has also reached epidemic proportions and needs reform. The ever-increasing costs have to be funded and it is already apparent that this is beyond the individual, who can no longer afford the cost of private insurance.
GAP proposes to fund a quality public health and hospital system through our Debit-tax and the social security taxes that Australians have contributed too through their working years. We propose to directly fund a system of district community hospitals run by a hospital board to eliminate waste as about 75% of funds are wasted in administration costs by the states. Community health care will be provided by local GP’s who can then refer patients to hospital care if and when needed and attend to their patient in these hospitals. This will take the pressure off the hospital systems by people who abuse it, for minor and non-urgent matters.
GAP proposes that standard health care will be free to all Australians who qualify. Visitors to the country must be covered with travel insurance to cover any health and hospital services for the period of their visit.
GAP proposes Medicare cards with photos and all relevant qualification data to be issued, so preventing the system from being abused.
The private health system is profit driven and generally foreign owned and currently subsidised $1.6 billion annually by public funds. GAP proposes to redirect this money to the public system to increase the scheduled fee for consultations with General Practitioners (GP’s), ensuring the survival of their practices. Two decades of government policy enacted through regulation has allowed GP rebates to increasingly decline against cost of living rises. The result is that doctors have lost ownership and control of their practices, amny of which have been swallowed up by the giant health care corporations. Making this change will ensure that Health care workers including all modes of healthcare are a very valuable commodity for the vertically integrated Corporate Medical centres through their ability to tap into Medicare funds via their referrals to pathology, X-ray and specialists. The universal health care system in Australia was designed to be a system where all Australians were able to obtain good quality health care, if and when the need suddenly arose. What we are now witnessing is the beginning of the full United States (US) health care scenario, in general practice, specialist services and hospital ownership. Governments are selling off our hospitals to large corporations. Greed has gobbled up bedside manner and real care to line the pockets of overseas investors. GAP believes this abuse should cease.
GAP believes gap coverage between standard public care and additional care, should be available. Insurance companies will be encouraged to provide coverage based on amounts rather than services, this will reduce current abuses and keep prices down.
GAP believes no one is perfect even doctors and at times things do go wrong, to discourage frivolous legal claims, complaints about any alleged incompetence or malpractice will be handled by the hospital boards, with compensation based on workers compensation rates and any major ones on a base of life time care. Dissatisfied patients in private hospitals will still have the legal option.
GAP believes Australian seniors throughout their working life have contributed through social security taxes to health care and have a right to worry free adequate health care during their retirement years. (Please refer to GAP Seniors policy for details).
GAP believes in re-establishment of the apprentice training of registered Nurses in teaching hospitals.
GAP believes in retention and encouragement of General Practice, with adequate fees to cover costs to be provided from the federal health system.
GAP would stop costly abuse of our public hospital systems, bi immigration and multi-culturism
GAP would take steps to ensure quality health and medical care is available to rural communities.
GAP believes in the restoration of the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, to enable us to retain an alternative to the market exploitation of multinational drug companies. This would provide us with an indication of the real cost of drug production.
GAP opposes private In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) clinics and the wealthy doctors who exploit unmarried women, resulting in mental and physical damage to mother and child leaving the community and taxpayer to pick up the bill. Many people end up so depressed and desperate they see suicide as the only solution.
GAP will not tolerate the current abuse of human rights in the psychiatric hospitals and will reform the current system with more natural remedies and psychoanalysis programs. Pharmaceutical remedies in the psychiatric industry must follow the same testing regimes as any other drug available through a GP. Other modes of health care like Naturopathy and acupuncture will be set on the same level as a General Practitioner, with equal access to all health care facilities.
GAP will, based on the laws of equity, promote that all Naturopaths, acupuncturists , homeopathy and other specialist modes of Naturopathy be recognised in the Private Health Insurance legislation and medicare claims. GAP will also promote that all Naturopaths be registered with the Australian Medical Association having full access to our Public Hospitals and medical facilities. This registration with the Australian Medical Association will allow that all current training facilities for naturopaths be brought under and within the current University training systems used for the training of all Medical Doctors and specialists. GAP realises that this policy is clearly needed in the public interest. Our nurses will also undergo extra training in order to take into account the needs of the patients being cared for by the added extra modes of health care. Eventually this will lead to a generational change to the medical industry all for the benefits of the public interest.
GAP will also fund to address the undone science in regard to vaccines and remove all coercive legislation to allow freedom of informed choice when deciding if vaccination is for you. GAP would fund proper discourse from within the public health sector and clinical experts within relevant fields with no conflicts of interest. This should be widely broadcast and debated in the public domain while remaining open for further scientific debate and scrutiny. We will engage qualified medical investigators to:
1. Perform safety testing of all registered vaccines against inert saline placebo.
2.GAP supports combination therapies and or integrated medicine.
3. Perform municipal or regional evaluation of vaccination outcomes in areas of larger non-vaccinating populations such as the Northern Rivers region of NSW. An un-vaccinated comparison population is both necessary and desirable to obtain useful outcome information.
4. Create an institution of mandatory reporting of Vaccine Adverse Events (VAE’s) and vaccine-related deaths, SIDS and other health outcomes in comparison to never-vaccinated groups.
5. Perform rigorous independent evaluation of adverse events, including deaths, autoimmune diseases and cancer rates in young women vaccinated with HPV vaccines compared to equivalent VAE’s in those never-vaccinated with HPV vaccine.
None of these studies have ever been performed, and this is simply unacceptable.
