Health Care

In general, neither Ben and I have much experience for doctors, and therefore lack much of an understanding about how the system (or the insurance) works. Having been students for the better part of our adult lives (and foregoing all medical attention when we weren’t students), the bulk of our medical experience has been with the infamous school health centres, where they take your temperature, give you a pregnancy test (gender doesn’t matter), and send you on your way. Therefore, it’s hard for us to draw too many comparisons between the health care systems there and here. Australia has publicly funded universal health care, so it is MUCH more affordable (although since health care costs are higher in the US than any other nation, I guess that doesn't say much). Australia also ranks higher than the US on WHO's health system ranking. However, after some recent experience with the health care system here, we aren’t that impressed.

As a requirement for her new job, Kerry had to get a “general workplace medical” – which is apparently quite common here. Maybe that’s common in the US, too, but since I’ve never had a real job there, I wouldn’t know. I showed up for the appointment, and the nurse’s checklist didn’t match the Zoo’s faxed checklist, so she spent half an hour saying “What should we do – I don’t know – let’s do a urine test, that’s pretty common. Sure, we’ll do a colour vision test, too.” Once she was happy with the number of boxes she checked (regardless of which list they were on) she passed me on to the doctor, where I stood on one foot, touched my toes, and received her seal of approval. But the other major requirement for the job is to get a TB test – simple, right? No. Only government-operated chest clinics are allowed to give the skin prick test, and there are only 5 or so in Sydney. Furthermore, the clinics are only open for ~2 hours a day. Consequently, there is a 4-8 week waiting list at most clinics – for a skin prick test! So maybe it’s more affordable, but it doesn’t seem to be more efficient!

Ben actually had a medical issue that needed attention, and the jury is still out as to whether the Purdue Health Centre or the Macquarie Health Centre was less helpful. Some of you may remember when Ben got an intestinal parasite in the summer of 2007 (when Kerry abandoned him to do lynx stuff), and the potentially-comedic-if-he-weren’t-dying situation that it led to. [For those of you who missed out, after 3 weeks during which his GI tract refused to tolerate any outside substances (food, water, etc.) he took himself to the health centre, where, once the doctor finally looked at him, they realized it must be something serious and took every action to help him. They pumped him full of fluids to get him rehydrated, and then did all kinds of tests, including an x-ray. Some spot showed up in the x-ray, which led to this awkward conversation in which the nurse asked Ben if he had any piercings that he neglected to remove, or if he had forgotten about being shot and maybe there was shrapnel in his abdomen (since things like that are so forgettable). In their over-zealous quest to fix him, they latched onto this spot, even though it was unlikely to be related to the problem, and they sent him to the hospital (in an ambulance) where he could get a CT scan that may help reveal what the spot was. Once the scan was finished at 4:45, he was informed that the radiologist was gone for the day and the scan wouldn’t be read until tomorrow, so he was free to leave. Remember, thanks to the ambulance, the car was ~4 miles away. The nurse kindly pointed Ben to the wrong bus stop, and as Ben sat there watching his bus drive right by, he decided just to walk back to campus. On a hot summer day. Sweating out the many dollars worth of fluids he had just received. A few days (and a few thousand dollars) later the doctor decided maybe it was giardia (although that was the one thing they didn’t test for, so there was no way of knowing for sure), and gave Ben an anti-protozoan which seemed to do the trick.]

So now, a similar parasite seems to be back, wrecking havoc on Ben’s body (but at least Kerry was around this time to help). Rather than waiting 3 weeks, we decided to visit the doctor sooner, and luckily, he got right in. They didn’t take his temp (even though he’d been feverish), they didn’t listen to his suggestion that it may be a protozoan – they just gave him the standard issue antibiotic and some anti-nausea pills. So again, Oz wins the cost contest hands-down, but we're not convinced the quality of the care was any better. Oh, the joys!