Governments Short-Sighted in Abandoning Long Term Care Scheme for Catastrophically Injured
Chair of the AMA's Medical Professional Indemnity Taskforce, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that patients and the community would be the big losers if governments failed to pursue a national long term care scheme for people catastrophically injured in accidents, including medical accidents.
The Australian newspaper reports that governments have abandoned plans for a national long term care scheme because of the cost.
Dr Pesce, an obstetrician, said the cost of a national scheme would come down significantly over time, but the social benefit would far outweigh the economic cost in any case.
"A properly structured long term care scheme would make more effective use of taxpayer money and, more importantly, provide better lives and quality of life for the disabled," Dr Pesce said.
"It would take the place of the existing adversarial court-based system that results in one-off compensation payments not structured for lifetime care.
"A national care scheme would provide justice, fairness and compassion for those who need it most - and, over time, greater affordability for governments and the community.
"Such a scheme would also provide security and certainty to the Federal Government's medical indemnity rescue package of 2003.
"Under the current system, the majority of severely disabled people do not reach the courts, let alone receive assistance. And experience has shown that one-off payments can run out very quickly and patients end up in nursing homes or other care, and not in the home environment they wished for.
"The current system is failing the catastrophically injured - 60 per cent of them get no support for care or compensation at all because they never make it to court or qualify for assistance under other schemes. The cost of their care for life falls on their families.
"Abandoning the years of progress towards a national scheme to help all the catastrophically injured is short-sighted and a dereliction of duty by our governments. It means they are prepared to shift the blame, the cost and all the responsibility onto the victims and their families. This is a social tragedy. Our governments have collectively abandoned their responsibilities to the most vulnerable Australians - people without a voice of their own.
"We need some policy bravery and political leadership immediately to put the national long term care scheme back on the agenda," Dr Pesce said.