Healthcare in Australia: A Foundation of Human Service Essay

This essay provides a detailed examination of the Australian healthcare system, beginning with an overview of its structure, including the roles of Medicare and private medical practitioners. It explores the historical development of public health in Australia, tracing the evolution of healthcare policies and institutions. The essay highlights key issues such as increasing rates of obesity, diabetes, and mental illness, as well as disparities in healthcare access for indigenous populations. It analyzes the role of government, private practitioners, and insurance schemes in funding and delivering healthcare services. The essay also offers recommendations for improving the healthcare system, focusing on technological advancements, better communication systems, and renewed educational programs to address health inequalities, particularly among indigenous communities. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of equitable healthcare access for all Australians.

Running head: FOUNDATION OF HUMAN SERVICE DISCIPLINE
Foundation of Human Service Discipline
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1FOUNDATION OF HUMAN SERVICE DISCIPLINE
The purpose of this essay is to examine healthcare service as a social issue and the
essay further highlights on the past and after those theoretically informed recommendations
are provided in the essay. It is a matter of fact that healthcare in the land of Australia is
provided by hospitals and nursing homes operated by either government or by public
organizations and also by private medical practitioners and medical clinics. In most cases the
cost of medical support or treatment is paid by the insurance companies and if the sum
surpasses the insured amount then the patient has to pay that sum. It is seen that Medicare can
be referred to as Australia’s universal healthcare system and it is the main health scheme that
provides subsidiaries most of the medical costs of all the Australian citizens and the residents
of the country (Touati & Tabish, 2013). There are also some other schemes that supports the
medical costs in some special situations , like those schemes subsidizes the medical costs of
the war veterans or the indigenous people of Australia. In some cases for the tourists, there
are some travel insurance schemes that cover the medical costs of the tourists.
It is seen that Australian healthcare system actually provides a global access to a
comprehensive range of various services which is hugely funded by the general taxation of
the government (Srinivasan & Arunasalam, 2013). Medicare, Australia’s healthcare system
was initially introduced in the year of 11984 that supports the medical costs of in public
hospitals health clinics and also provides subsidiaries to various medical services. The
success of Australian healthcare system becomes clear when a statistics came in front stating
that in general the life expectancy of the people of Australia ranks third among all the nations
worldwide (Sturmberg, O'halloran & Martin, 2012). There are some matter of concerns also
preset in Australian healthcare services, such as increasing rate of obesity, diabetes, aging and
mental illness and many more. Apart from that a long gap is seen in the healthcare services
provided for the regular citizens of Australia and the indigenous people of Australia.

2FOUNDATION OF HUMAN SERVICE DISCIPLINE
Most of the medical practitioners are engaged in private medical practices who take
fees for the services they offer. MBS (Medical Benefits Schedule) fixes a price or fee for
each objects or service that is covered by Medicare for which the federal government
provides a fixed rebate. The Medicare Benefit Schedule provides all the medical services
provided by the hospitals and also in-hospital medical services for the private patients. It is
also a fact that the government allows the private practitioners to set their own fees that
expose the patients in front of extra charges. In most cases e 70% medical costs gets covered
by Medicare, and the rest has to be paid by the individuals. In Australia, a strong medical care
unit is seen and the general practitioners serve the role of a gate keeper, as they check the
patients and refer them to the specialists. The treatments done by the specialists get covered
by Medicare if only the patient has been referred to a specialist by a general practitioner.
In the land of Australia, it is seen that government is trying very hard to provide
medical supports to the citizens of the country, but in some cases a huge partiality is seen.
Such as, in today’s world, the aboriginal people of Australia are seen not getting proper
medical support from the government due to various reasons. It is seen that Australian
government has stopped the educational programs specially designed for the aboriginal
people, because they thought that it might affect the teaching of English language in their
country. Due to lack of proper education the aboriginal people often gets exposed in front of
various diseases (Selkirk et al., 2013). It is also seen that many aboriginal people reside at the
remote areas of the country where there are no proper communication system and people who
live there are deprived of the medical supports provided by the government. In most cases the
aged aboriginal people of Australia gets deprived of these medical supports provided by the
government.
In the year of 1850 the New South Wales Board of Health was established after an
epidemic caused by small pox disease. The purpose behind the forming of this board was to

3FOUNDATION OF HUMAN SERVICE DISCIPLINE
provide medical advice and to assist people for preventing the spread of the disease. The first
ever public health act was introduced in the year of 1896 that clarified the powers of the
medical board. In the year 1902 the act was amended and it was said that there will be 10
board members and out of them 4 people has to be medical practitioners. In 1904 the
department of public health was established and numerous amendments in the acts
strengthened the powers of the board (Radnor, Holweg & Waring, 2012). On and from the
year of 1902 the board emerged as responsible for supervision of numerous public health acts
that involves Abattoir Act of 1850, Leprosy Act of 189, Pure Food Act of 1908, Private
Hospital acts 1908 and many more. In the year of 1929 Public Hospital Act emerged as a
milestone in the history of public health service in Australia (Hoare, Mills & Francis, 2012).
By the introduction of this act assurance from the government regarding medical support was
initially seen. The act also established Hospital’s Commission in New South Wales which
had the power of operating separately from the Board of Health. The Board of Health had the
responsibility to report to the Health Commission regarding pulic health. In the year of 1973
NSW Health Commission was also established that brought in psychiatric hospitals, public
health services and public health programs under a same governing body (Drummond et al.,
2015).
Later various amendments were made for the betterment of the public health. In 1982
NSW Department of Health was established under Health Administration Act for simplifying
the structure of the organization to meet up the changing needs of the society (Britt et al.,
2012). Later in the year of 1986 Are Health Boards were also established replacing numerous
Hospital Boards. After that during the last decade of 20th century mane much needed
amendments were done where amalgamation of Eastern Sydney and Southern Sydney’s
health services was done and also formation of 8 rural health services were introduced
replacing 23 separate District Health Services (Britt et al., 2013). Later in 1997 The Health

4FOUNDATION OF HUMAN SERVICE DISCIPLINE
Service Act was introduced which replaced Public Hospital Act of 1929 and Area Health
Service of 1986. This new act strengthens the provisions of the previous acts and introduced
numerous new provisions for a modern healthcare system in Australia (Böhm et al., 2013).
For further betterment of the healthcare system of Australia some necessary
recommendations are provided in this section of the essay. It is a matter of fact that the
government needs to invest a lot for technological advancement to provide the best medical
support to the residents of Australia (Bergan & Bunke-Paquette, 2014). In some remote areas
of Australia, the government needs to improve the communication system as due to lack of
proper roads or transportation each year a number of people die being deprived of proper
medical support and most of them are aboriginal people of Australia, as in the remote areas
like coastal areas, or by the woods the aboriginal people reside mainly. The government also
needs to restart the educational programs for the aboriginal people they have previously shut
down due to some reasons, for generating more social awareness regarding health issues
among the aboriginal people. Apart from all these the government must try to generate more
awareness regarding the health issues among all the residents of Australia for the further
betterment of the situation (Aminian & Naji, 2013).
Thus to conclude, it can be said that, improving the general medical condition of the
country. The general life expectancy of Australian people is on the higher side, but still it is a
duty of the government to provide healthcare support to all the residents of Australia. The
government also needs to improve the communication system in many areas so that the
medical team could reach up to the people who are deprived of proper medical support. It
cannot be denied that the medical support should be equal for all and there are some instances
where the aboriginal people are deprived of these supports due to many reasons. Thus it is the
duty of the government to maintain equality when it comes to a sensitive issue like receiving
proper medical supports, as it is a well known thing that white Australia has a black past, so

5FOUNDATION OF HUMAN SERVICE DISCIPLINE
the government should try hard to bring back the aboriginal people to the regular path of life
and provide them with the social security just like the other people receive in Australia.

6FOUNDATION OF HUMAN SERVICE DISCIPLINE
References
Aminian, M., & Naji, H. R. (2013). A hospital healthcare monitoring system using wireless
sensor networks. J. Health Med. Inform, 4(02), 121.
Bergan, J. J., & Bunke-Paquette, N. (Eds.). (2014). The vein book. Oxford University Press.
Böhm, K., Schmid, A., Götze, R., Landwehr, C., & Rothgang, H. (2013). Five types of
OECD healthcare systems: empirical results of a deductive classification. Health
Policy, 113(3), 258-269.
Britt, H., Miller, G. C., Henderson, J., Bayram, C., Valenti, L., Harrison, C., ... & O'Halloran,
J. (2013). General Practice Activity in Australia 2012-13: BEACH: Bettering the
Evaluation and Care of Health (No. 33). Sydney University Press.
Britt, H., Miller, G. C., Henderson, J., Charles, J., Valenti, L., Harrison, C., ... & Pan, Y.
(2012). General practice activity in Australia 2011-12 (Vol. 31). Sydney University
Press.
Drummond, M. F., Sculpher, M. J., Claxton, K., Stoddart, G. L., & Torrance, G. W.
(2015). Methods for the economic evaluation of health care programmes. Oxford
university press.
Hoare, K. J., Mills, J., & Francis, K. (2012). The role of Government policy in supporting
nurse‐led care in general practice in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia:
an adapted realist review. Journal of advanced Nursing, 68(5), 963-980.
Radnor, Z. J., Holweg, M., & Waring, J. (2012). Lean in healthcare: the unfilled
promise?. Social science & medicine, 74(3), 364-371.

7FOUNDATION OF HUMAN SERVICE DISCIPLINE
Selkirk, C. G., Weissman, S. M., Anderson, A., & Hulick, P. J. (2013). Physicians'
preparedness for integration of genomic and pharmacogenetic testing into practice
within a major healthcare system. Genetic testing and molecular biomarkers, 17(3),
219-225.
Srinivasan, U., & Arunasalam, B. (2013). Leveraging big data analytics to reduce healthcare
costs. IT professional, 15(6), 21-28.
Sturmberg, J. P., O'halloran, D. M., & Martin, C. M. (2012). Understanding health system
reform–a complex adaptive systems perspective. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical
Practice, 18(1), 202-208.
Touati, F., & Tabish, R. (2013). U-healthcare system: State-of-the-art review and
challenges. Journal of medical systems, 37(3), 9949.