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Our eyesight is something that those of us without problems probably don’t think much about, but being able to see is something of obvious importance.
That’s why I am horrified to hear from a local eye surgeon that the public system emergency eye services provided across the Greater Western Area Health Service for all patients will in all probability disappear overnight. It would leave casualty departments at Bathurst, Orange and Dubbo Base hospitals with no Ophthalmology specialist cover and unnecessarily exposed.
The cause of this absolute medical chaos follows the Rudd Government’s May Budget, which slashes the Medicare rebate for cataract surgery, and more than one eye specialist has contacted me with serious concerns about the implications.
Eye surgeons tell me because the Federal Government’s Medicare rebate is being basically halved to just a few hundred dollars for cataract surgery there is likely to be no public access to eye specialists, effectively privatising eye surgery.
Labor is looking to privatise our health system by stealth, or so it would seem.
With cataract surgery we are talking about a very dangerous operation which involves great medical skills and years of training, surgeons remove the lens in an eye and replace it with an artificial lens to restore a person’s sight.
The full extent of the chaos this harsh budget cut will cause is still filtering through to people, but eye surgeons and local councils are contacting me to raise the alarm.
And it is alarming, there are five resident eye surgeons west of Nepean in NSW (four within the GWAHS region) and they all run privately funded practices which involve major investment in specialist equipment. Doctors tell me there are no public eye/outpatient departments at any Base Hospital west of Nepean in NSW. All cataract surgery as well as other eye surgery, including emergency eye operations at any of our institutions is carried out by the Visiting Medical Officers who are paid by GWAHS (state money) based on the Medicare rebate in the Medicare Funding agreement. Clearly this situation is causing great uncertainty now the rebate has been pretty much halved. State Labor is between a rock and a hard place on this because they set the fee and pay the eye surgeons based on the Federal Government’s Medicare rebate.
Eye specialists tell me if NSW Health reduces the Rural Doctors fee for cataract surgery, which is expected because of the savage Medicare rebate cut, then it is possible no surgeons will be operating in the public sector.
There’s about 200,000 cataracts operated on each year in this country and the waiting list for surgery at Orange is about about 12 to 18 months, and longer in Bathurst, anxious people are now asking surgeons to bring their operations forward to before November this year, before the Federal Government’s budget slash kicks in, but of course that’s obviously going to be difficult.
Disturbingly some of our most vulnerable elderly citizens are also being targeted here. Veterans who are currently treated at no cost if they have a Gold Card are likely to be hit with a shortfall being estimated at $400 per cataract operation.
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