- Posted by Ad astra on July 28, 2009
Those involved in primary health care will smile wryly as they read the Final Report of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission of June 2009 - A Healthier Future For All Australians released yesterday and peruse the proposed elements for redesigning the health system. The first element is ‘to embed prevention and early intervention into every aspect of our health system and our lives’.
This is exactly what has been advocated by family physicians for over 40 years. When the principle of prevention and early detection of illness was advanced in the seventies as the most effective approach to improving health and lightening the burden on hospitals, it was not taken seriously until a minister in the Whitlam Government accepted that thesis and continued the funding of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ training programme for family doctors. Despite that display of support for this principle, the pre-eminence of the specialities at the time curbed its widespread acceptance by the medical profession. All that has now changed as even the narrowest of specialties recognizes that preventing illness and detecting it early is not only better for the patient, but far less costly than having to undertake complex management of advanced disease undetected until in its late stages. More...