When we first married we had private health insurance. Living in Darwin, it was useless. We'd visit a doctor who'd make a diagnosis that sounded a little off so we'd visit another for a second opinion. He'd ring the doctor, who was supposed to be the "expert" and who we'd just been to, for his opinion. There was only one hospital and the waiting time for elective surgery was much the same whether public or private. We gave up on private insurance as a waste of money. One of our children was badly burnt in a camping accident. so we were in and out of hospitals treating his burns, he then developed chronic glue ear, another son needed an op to correct a bone malformation issue. Wife became chronically ill in the end and we spent thousands of hours at doctors and specialists. I was then run over by a drunk in 2001. When we moved "South" wife spent much of her remaining life in and out of the high dependency Cardiac Unit. All in the public system, and all free!
Were I in private health, I'd be broke with co-payments on top of my premiums, and no, we would not have had any better care for it! I cannot praise medicare enough! The issue with the public system is not the system, but the people who think that they need to visit a doctor, or A&E because they got a splinter. We saw a lot of it with the missus as I would be her "ambulance". As we live in the country often the ambulance would take half an hour or more to get to us - despite there being an ambulance based in our town. We'd arrive in A&E and despite being run off their feet, the staff were always helpful and respectful. Sometimes we'd have to wait in the public waiting area for a barouche (because we'd arrived by car and not by ambulance) so we saw all sorts, many drunk and disorderly who were under police guard. Again, these people did not "need" to be there but, owing to the "do gooders" the cops had to treat them "special" instead of just throw 'em in a cell to sober up.
As to your "problem" Bazzy, you need to look around, my daughter lives in Ipswich and has none of your "issues".
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