When the public can’t tell the difference between what a government does and satire, that government is in trouble. We’re looking at you, New South Wales.
Our sister publication, The Medical Republic, has a regular column called Humoural Theory.
The clue’s in the name. Humour.
Over the years HT has taken all specialties to the cleaners, skewered medical professions of all denominations and used humour to highlight the ridiculousness of some aspects of the Australian healthcare system. HT is an equal opportunity piss-taker.
This week HT took on the NSW psychiatry crisis – you can read it in full here – but the gist was that NSW Health’s response to about 200 state-employed psychiatrists quitting was so laughable that it was telling patients to go see their pharmacists for psychiatric advice.
“After all, pharmacies are hubs of holistic care and pharmacists are trusted health professionals and highly trained clinicians who are always looking to practise at the top of their scope,” wrote HT in bold sarcasm font.
It was perfect for a couple of reasons. First of all, it gently pokes pharmacists who have been stretching their scope of practice balloon to the point of bursting for a couple of years now.
But second, it perfectly illustrates the total inadequacy of NSW Health’s response (at the time of writing) to what is potentially a catastrophic breakdown in the state’s mental health system.
NSW is employing locums – some of them the same psychiatrists who just quit – at rates allegedly as much as $3000 A DAY, rather than paying them the 25% pay rise that STILL would make them underpaid in comparison to colleagues in other states.
Where is the sense in that? Someone explain it to me, please.
HT did, via rapier wit.
“‘We’ve been a lot busier ever since the psychiatrists left,” pharmacy owner Tony Trembler told TMR.
“‘A patient came in the other day and said that blue ants were crawling inside his veins and that when he dug up the floorboards in his living room he found a giant seam of rotting human flesh.
“‘I tried to sell him some jellybeans and a bottle of Lynx Dark Temptation but he left pretty disappointed, saying that he didn’t think it would help’.”
Perfect.
That article got about 10 times its usual clicks (and counting) and has gone viral through a couple of social media sites, most notably reddit.
People thought it was serious – that NSW Health actually did tell patients to go to pharmacists for psychiatric advice. Take a look at the comments on the article. There is genuine confusion.
At first I thought – hmmm, maybe we did the wrong thing publishing that. And then I realised, actually, no.
The NSW government is just that ridiculous on this issue. So ridiculous that people can no longer tell the difference between what the government does, and satire.
Minister for mental health Rose Jackson, fronting the media on Thursday, admitted that if the Industrial Relations Commission orders the government to give psychiatrists the 25% pay rise they want, it will indeed pay up.
“Assuming that the IRC’s outcome will be fair and reasonable,” she said.
Which suggests that (a) there’s a chance the IRC is not fair and reasonable, and (b) all the prior bluster from health minister Ryan Park about 25% being unaffordable was complete balderdash.
As I said last week, of course the money is there, it’s just in a different bucket, one the government clearly cares about more than it cares about the state’s mental health system.
Fingers crossed the IRC falls on the psychiatrists’ side. Or better yet, NSW Health comes to its senses, pays the 25% and puts some long overdue system reforms in place before too many more mental health beds have to be closed.
Because it’s patients who are suffering and the cost of compensation for liability somewhere down the line may have to be added to the stupidity of paying locums through the nose for the sake of not backing down.
And I’m totally not kidding about that.