Cycles and reflections

The Federal Budget threw a few shekels at general practice. It is a sign of having been around a while when you can see cycles repeat. Falling rates of direct billing create a political problem which leads to money been thrown. This increases direct billing. Over ensuing years, the value drops and the cycle repeats. It happened in the early 1990s and mid-2000s. COVID delayed it this time.

My Medicare resembles the defunct Health Care Homes which was going to “revolutionise” primary care. My prediction is that the renamed version will also eventually disappear without trace. There is a renewed emphasis on team care. Realistically, with changing disease patterns from acute to mainly chronic, this makes sense. Care needs of an ageing population require input from multiple disciplines. However, like a sports team, there needs to be a captain and this role must be retained by GPs. Each team member can make a valuable contribution but to quote Don Lucchesi from Godfather III – “our ships must sail in the same direction”.

Medical Forum must have had a premonition as we are highlighting Allied Health in this edition and going forward will be expanding the Clinical Service Directory at the back of the magazine to include more of these services. The other theme is Body & Mind. I saw an interesting statistic form the US Surgeon General claiming that loneliness and lacking social connection is worse than smoking 15 cigarettes a day when it comes to impact on premature mortality.

Interviewed by Vox, former surgeon general Vivek Murthy claimed the USA faced a loneliness epidemic. The article states: “The coronavirus pandemic has created a loneliness epidemic. Social distancing, while necessary from a public health standpoint, has caused a collapse in social contact among family, friends, and entire communities – one that is particularly hard on populations already most vulnerable to isolation.”

Side effects are real in any medical intervention. Ignoring them has not changed that. Australia is not dissimilar. There are no medical solutions, but the problems will be seen in medical practice.

Lastly, it is worth noting the passing of Jerry Springer in April. This is the show that everyone watched but few admitted to. As one pundit noted he paved the way for today’s reality shows such as MAFS. At the end of each program, he delivered the same line “Till next time, take care of yourselves, and each other”. In times of stress, or any time – this is good advice for all of us.