Free Essay: Healthcare in Australia

According to the healthcare channel (2020), Australia’s public health initiative was initiated in 1788 in Sidney, which later saw the setup of public health units throughout NSW in 1990 to deal with related issues of monitoring and protecting the population’s health at the local level. Later in 1904, the department of public health was established, which was sequential to the Amendment of the public health act in 1902 that was aimed at strengthening the board powers in supervising the vast public health acts (Healthcare channel, 2020). Finally, the health service act came into effect in 1997 to replace the area health services and the public hospitals' act which aimed at recognizing the importance of recognizing the roles of education, health promotion, community health, and environmental health services (Healthcare channel, 2020). Currently, the types of healthcare that are in place include the public system (Medicare), which provides a high level of healthcare besides offering residents access to hospital treatments at lower costs, and the private health system, which is owned and managed privately (Ditix & Samabasivan, 2018). Australia's healthcare system is therefore depicted as one of the best in the world owing to its safe and affordable healthcare to its citizens and jointly run by all levels of Australian government state, federal, territory, and local levels with the primary healthcare providers being medical specialists, allied health workers, nurses and primary caregivers.

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In comparing Australia's healthcare system with other nations, it spends the lowest amount on healthcare compared to its OECD peer groups, Canada and France, and tops in the group in terms of hospital spending, utilization, and capacity (Dixit & Sambasivan, 2018). Despite its strengths, Australia's healthcare system faces the challenges of access barriers for Medicaid patients due to costs as compared to the United States and the United Kingdom as Canada fares better than it in terms of patients' waiting time (Knickman & Kovner, 2015). However, despite the challenges faced by Australia’s healthcare, it remains popular among its citizens following its provision of healthcare services to all its citizens and permanent residents for free, all visitors and travelers all-inclusive, albeit with restrictions. According to Crash Course (2016), Australia’s pharmaceuticals are subsidized that Medicaid covers even mental healthcare services besides emphasizing disease prevention and management. Finally, the public hospitals and the emergency departments do not get overrun as it believes that prevention is cost-effective.

References

CrashCourse. (2016, April 6). The Economics of Healthcare: Crash Course Econ #29 [Video].YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=cbBKoyjFLUY&feature=emb_title

Dixit, S., & Sambasivan, M. (2018). A review of the Australian healthcare system: A policyperspective. SAGE Open Medicine, 6, 205031211876921. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050312118769211

Knickman, J. R., & Kovner, A. R. (2015). Jonas and Kovner's health care delivery in the UnitedStates (11th ed.). Springer Publishing Company.

https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/Gusmano.Rodwintextbook_chapter.9780826125279_Chapter_04.pdfThe rich history of the Australian healthcare system. (2020, May 22). Healthcare Channel.

https://healthcarechannel.co/the-rich-history-of-the-australian-healthcare-system/