Waiting to have health put first

Southern Mel,
Daily Mercury, August 18 2010

“PRAISE the Lord!” There he stood, about five foot ten with a two-day growth, and his arms, one bleeding, spread like a bird while yelling hallelujah.

No, this wasn’t a scene out of Passion of the Christ or another religious movie. It was the scene in a hospital emergency room in suburban Melbourne.

“Praise the Lord. I thought I was going to bleed to death,” he said as a roomful of about 50 watched on. It had been a boring four-hour wait, so watching this guy make a scene was quite amusing indeed. The doctor quietly told the bleeding man to control himself before whisking him down the hallway.

I recalled this amusing, but serious, sight as I wrote an article about TomGraham’s 31-hour wait for surgery on a severed finger a couple of weeks ago.

I had heard a lot about Queensland’s ailing health system before arriving in Mackay. But it really hit home when I wrote that Mr Graham, a Moranbah miner, severed his ring finger at 2.30pm one day in a freak drill accident but wasn’t operated on until 10pm the next day.

I don’t think the man with the two-day growth waited as long as Mr Graham for surgery.

But when I watched him struggle to stem the bleeding with a homemade bandage it was clear he needed medical attention. ASAP.

All I know is he was in the waiting room before I arrived with my broken thumb. My thumb had been broken for more than 24 hours, so I had no problem letting more critical patients go first – particularly those who claimed they would die waiting.

I’m sure Mr Graham also had no dramas with those with more serious ailments being treated first. But nobody with a severed finger should wait as long as he did for surgery.

So this week I had my own “praise the Lord” moment when Prime Minister Julia Gillard firmly put health on the agenda at her official campaign launch in Brisbane.

Every Australian deserves a first-class health system. Let’s hope we don’t die waiting, regardless of the outcome of Saturday’s poll.