The longest piece of poetry I have ever written
Too many questions
Our secret shame
Or should I call it the dying lists?
Days, Months and Years of uncertainty
Never knowing when you need help or where
Feeling helpless, sad, giving up on humanity
Anxiety- the latest modern disease
Having poor immunity and a nation of chronic health issues, immunosuppressed patients
Understanding- The paramedics, nurses, doctors and emergency outpatients
“No we can’t treat you today”
“Here’s some antibiotics- AGAIN”
“You need that cut out”
“You need specialist help”
“Wait a year and we will see if you have cancer”
“Here’s some painkiller- prescribed opiates”
“Come back if you don’t get better”
“Have you tried another doctor?”
We have run out of surgical bandages!
All in ten years!
The doctor, I can’t get my patients treated
Patients having waited longer than you have, with worst conditions
Wasted time
You not alone
While you on the waiting list
Antibiotic resistance, systemic infection, death
Rotten teeth, poor eyesight, lack of hearing while you paying the other medical bills, something has to give
Addiction to prescribed painkillers, an epidemic in opiate use and the side effects on society
Unemployment, pain, depression, disfigured bodies
Legal marijuana in ACT, alcohol for sale in the local café, to dull your pain?
Culturally acceptable due to higher tax profits?
Searching for answers, multiple appointments, multiple opinions
More specialists needed because the first could not do their work in time
A child that is told Goodbye
A suicidal nurse
Flying doctors
Overflowing emergency departments
Doctors trying to triage 4 patients in one hour, being moved around clinics
Hardly enough time to ask how you are. How can I help?
Is this what we want in our communities?
Is it acceptable?
How can we help the helpers, the carers, those that give more than they take?
Stress, underfunding, inability to plan for the future
Mindfulness and wellness for health care practitioners
Meditation, pacing, and breathing for the patients
Art for everyone
A nation in crisis micromanagement mode with short term solutions
The solution, little steps, patient by patient
Mentorship from those that have no or shorter waiting lists
Appreciating our doctors in Africa that had time to take pathology specimens and perform small surgeries before they became larger problems, they knew their patients, well educated, leaders in their communities, ask them how they did it…
Support from their communities and hard work? The ability to refer patients to specialised treatments?
Work for value not cash and support these people long term for carers need care just like the Meerkats
Ask for help, proper leadership
Redirecting taxes and rates urgently to specialised government departments
Reducing taxes and rates on primary healthcare facilities and point of care
Creating ongoing health education for patients, facilities for treatment, planning a brighter future
Providing quality not quantity care
If you can treat a patient with one visit rather than 10 over several years why not? It’s cost effective!
Hiring staff with donations and fundraising for a hospital is not a hospital without staff it is only a building
Not supporting for profit only private health business enterprises with government handouts
Enough is enough
Man-made epidemics, chronic illnesses and antibiotic resistance
Value ethics, morale’s, experience, knowledge
Don’t use and lose for greed
Aim for staff retainment,
Listen to the warning signs
A healthy community is a happy productive one
Without the waiting lists
Prevention is better than cure
Each person and patient is worth saving
Each doctor, nurse, paramedic, specialist a gift
Palliative hospitals are needed but ask are they needed because prevention was not possible?
Should we plan for deaths that are avoidable?
Mr Fluffy asbestos cancer, cervical cancer, bowel cancer waiting times
Personalised treatment plans, too expensive for most
Building hospitals to die in is not the answer
Assisted legal euthanasia- death, where there is no Hope
For the waiting lists affect not only one person but families and communities and whole nations
They don’t distinguish between rich and poor
For when there is no help here or there
You think, you puzzle, and you look for solutions
Is it all a mind-body game? A propaganda spiel on what’s acceptable and you must understand?
Fundraising for individual treatments overseas or in other states cannot help the situation created
Don’t rely on other nations, build your own expertise, you can then help others too
A gift to other nations, help returned to USA’s cancer research. Bali’s wellness centres for addiction, UK’s orthopaedic referrals to Africa…
Ask should others foot our bills? How can we contribute?
Do the right thing for one day you may need those very organs from people you have not serviced well in life
Many issues are at stake, much needs to be rectified
We should be proud of our health, education, aged care and safety programs -not ashamed
Australia, UK and USA you can all do better
I know for acknowledging the problem exists is a start to curing it
Like Africa and AIDs- proud of their work to tackle challenging circumstances, leaders in infectious health care, Perth’s specialists in mesothelioma
Susan Willemse
Ironically a medical scientist on a 2 year pain waiting list,
I ask after 31 years’ specialised health service where the help was when I needed it the most in Australia?
Surrounded by doctors, none that could help…
The problem is bigger than one nation
Is it acceptable that patients and medical staff have to train in disciplines to treat themselves?
Neuroscience for cytologists
Will I need to learn surgery next?
Do we only need to consider ourselves and no one else?
Me, Myself and I
Make more money to buy medical treatment and jump medical waiting lists?
Accepting suboptimal treatments?
Flight or fight?
Is making money the only important thing in life when we all leave with the same?
Is 1187 days acceptable for plastic surgery waiting list? I think not.
To my husband you are the best!
Thank you for getting me through this nightmare.
I will not even mention what else is wrong but work ethics seriously need to improve as well.
In Australia and worldwide
People- you and nature are the most valuable assets we have today, let’s look after both
Meerkat Sentinel is dedicated to all those affected, both patients and carers and those that soon will be too.
Trying to create something better than pain
Trying to plant a seed of thought
For ignorance is not bliss long-term, if it does not affect you now- it will in the future
Affected but proud to have survived
Hoping in just a little way I can help just one person wait one less day
On the Waiting lists
Counting the hours, days, months and years…
Learning patience, endurance, resilience and human empathy
The hard way
I dream and Hope there is a better way to progress further because GUT instinct says this is the wrong way
We need to turn back now and fix this soon, the warning signs are here already
Patients diverted, patients not treated
Comment if you brave enough to, share if you agree, ignore if you don’t care
For the first step to making this better is to raise awareness, acknowledge the need for improvements and take little steps
I can no longer keep quiet when so much needs to be done
It would be against all that I value and the Hippocratic Oath
First do no harm…
I see from an outside perspective, without bias, without gain
Facts are facts, statistics never show the entire emotional human impacts
Said from experience and knowledge, an opinion but one worth noting
Connect the dots, connect people, and connect the specialist teams, allow freedom of speech, don’t hide the failures, a downtrodden person will eventually speak up regardless, look at the history of Dictators
You can’t bury everyone on the waiting lists, networking may be our saviour
Waiting list patients are downtrodden but they people capable of giving more than they receive
They brave, they put on a smiling face, they choose to ignore those that don’t understand, they my special group of souls, they don’t distinguish and they lead by example not threat, force or greed
They think of others
Talk, discuss, listen, mentor, solve, build, create, research, trial, value quality and people, teach, and see
Keep going, don’t give up
The impossible can be possible
Just because it is, does not mean it is right
Progress is a linear platform with hills and valleys, disease is a spectrum, nothing is certain in life and change is the only given
Harvest change for the better, a little sacrifice now will help hugely in the future
For our children
Strive towards better Medical specialist treatment plans for everyone- worldwide
Thrive and be proud, take the pathway at the crossroads that will benefit long-term
Create those much needed teams and let them do their work
Reduce the paperwork administration by reducing the waiting times
Be inspirational
And above all reduce Waiting Times for they are not beneficial but hurtful to many
A hope I have explained a little, the problems and solutions
The way I see it, a gun free, drug addicted society is not a healthy one without medical help available
Medicine is for the sick while they get treated, a few need to use this long term to the delight of pharmaceuticals but it is not a solution for the entire population long term because treatment is not available
It’s not about have and have nots, greed and battlers, it’s about humanity
Fair Go Australia, does this really exist when tax cuts are only for those that have and when rates and taxes mainly go to private health and education in disproportionate figures?
Do we still need to subsidise second, third and fourth home owner’s investment properties while others struggle to have a place called home? Is not one home enough when we have the correct infrastructure for all? Should pensions not be made to all that have worked hard for Australia in their life and brought experience, knowledge and money here as well?
Positive psychology
What we all need now while we fix the secret shames of the dying lists
Everything is connected, our actions are linked, the consequences are there in plain sight for all to witness
I challenge everyone to look back in 10 years’ time and ask was I part of a solution or was I building someone else’s home for this is what this has made me do
Proud to have worked at Groote Schuur, sad I experienced Australian private pathology. Both have taught me so much, one inspired globally- one created pain for staff and patients alike. This too is linked to the Waiting Lists, we can learn from others struggles and successes.
Looking back and towards the future
Having faith in Australia’s good people for they need to know as well what needs to be done to avoid more of these poems in the future and they need help to do their good work too- firefighters, soldiers, sentinels, volunteers- all included.
On a lighter note this really is funny, shockingly so, I may have been mistaken before thinking Australia was a first world country but I realise it is a young nation still learning and easily influenced to copy the wrong, it will make mistakes and learn to fix them, this I have faith in. It has had success creating a safer environment in other areas where the same issues still face other much older countries.
May Australia and the world continue to build not destroy
Australia has the best birds and marsupial’s in the world (I’m proudly bias on this topic) this alone does and will help many, so go mindfully now, watch nature closely have space to grow and keep your chin up and keep smiling for this too shall pass if enough can be done at a higher level than individual observations.
Are the waiting lists just another epidemic of mismanagement?
For all those on the Waiting Lists and those dealing with the consequences as well – I understand
Susan
https://www.facebook.com/artaustralianbirds/
