Health Care in South Australia: Challenges and Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the health care system in South Australia. It begins by outlining the various services offered, including public hospitals, dental services, and emergency care, while also discussing the role of government agencies and policies like 'Health in All Policies'. The report then compares the South Australian health care system to those of other Australian states and OECD countries, highlighting key differences in funding, health indicators, and challenges. Specific challenges faced by South Australia, such as high rates of hospital admissions for chronic diseases and issues related to oral health, are examined. Finally, the report concludes by discussing strategies to improve health care facilities, including new models of care, strengthened rural health services, and increased accessibility for all residents. The report underscores the importance of addressing these challenges to enhance the overall health and well-being of the South Australian population.

Running head: HEALTH CARE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA
HEALTH CARE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Healthcare in South Australia
The Southern Australia provides an improved health care to the public by providing
effective leadership in health reforms, medical research and public health services. The south
Australian health services provides several important services to the SA community, which
includes- Public hospitals, environmental health policies, delivery of metropolitan and public
health, epidemiology, control of communicable diseases, excellent pathology services,
emergency and ambulance services, organ donation services (Britt et al. 2012). The SA dental
service also provides a vast range of dental services for children as well as the adults. The dental
service is publicly funded and also works in partnership with the University of Adelaide to train
and educate a large number of State’s dental work force. It has been reported that all children and
all young people under the 18 years of age are eligible of attending the school Dental Service
regardless of the parents or guardians (Chrisopoulos, Harford and Ellershaw. 2016). Adults are
eligible for getting the basic dental service. The older adults can have a current concession card
or a Department of Veterans affairs Pensioner concession card. If one is not an Australian
resident then he or she can access the dental care service at his or her own cost.
The SA health collaborates with other government agencies to provide an appropriate
care service to the consumers. The infrastructure directorate of SA helps in the strategic planning
and the evaluation of the requirements of the public health infrastructure system. It provides
leadership for the health assets of the SA (Corallo et al.2014). It is responsible for delivering
security services to the SA health. The South Australia has taken up the health in all policies.
‘The health in all policies’ actually has its origin in Europe. It has been implemented in the latest
European health strategies and it has been implemented highly by the all the countries of the

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European Union. Dental problems are very common among the population of South Australia.
As the population of the older adult is high in this state, the oral health status of this state has to
be focused on. Oral health diseases are also a major financial cost to the south Australian
community. Australia’s first National oral health plan (National plan) has been endorsed by the
Australian ministry of health conference in order to make oral health an important part of the
general health, in order to help out the common people to access appropriate and affordable
services. Researches and oral health evaluation is made in order to ensure an essential and
sufficiently skilled workforce and communities that effectively promote good oral health.
This approach has said to improve the outcomes in patient. HiAP has been introduced in
South Australia to extend its vow to joined-up government. Importantly, the South Australian
Health in All Policies approach stretches the European HiAP work for strengthening the focus on
improved health care through the achievement of the goals, and contributing towards bridging
the gap between theory and practice.
Health care in Australia
Health care in Australia is mainly provided by government hospitals, private physicians.
Half of the cost of the medical services is served by either the government agencies, or paid
privately by the clients or provided by the private insurance agencies and the rest is paid by the
clients privately. It is known that the Australian government spends 9% of its GDP in health
care, which can be close to many OECD countries but is much less than U.S (Duckett and
Willcox. 2015). The funding of health care via government is brought about by the Medicare
schemes, which provides universal access to a wide range of health services. This thing is
brought about by general taxation system. The Australian Medicare system has strengthened the

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health indicators and has helped to increase the life expectancy rate among the Australians.
There are a number of health services in the New South Wales. They are- NSW ambulance, good
health infrastructure, Health share NSW providing corporate and information technological
services health, NSW health pathology, E- health NSW, which is an organization that provides a
state wise leadership on the delivery, shape and management of the information council
technology led healthcare (Duckett and Willcox. 2015). Other services that are provided are
proper dental health clinics, local health districts and specialty network. There are several pillar
organizations in order to review the clinical variation and support the clinical network in the
development of the good service. There is a cancer institute and bureau of health information and
an agency of clinical innovation.
The health care services provided in Queensland is provided by government and non
government organizations, professionals, private companies and voluntary groups (Duckett and
Willcox. 2015). It has been reported that the Queensland health provides with free public
hospital services across 15 service districts.
In Tasmania there is a wide range of government health care services. The government is
continuously striving to provide a good patient service. But it has to be noted that the Tasmania
needs more funding when it is coming to health. It needed more improved care community,
discharge care and training in the medical students (Devaux and De Looper. 2012).
The health care system is Victoria provides a wide range health care benefit to the
Victoria. In Victoria, the treatment in the public hospital is free whereas in Private it is to be paid
by the consumer depending on the type of insurance benefit one select. The ambulatory care
service is provided by the Victorian government. The emergency department is efficient in

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dealing with the critical patients. Like the other states of Australia, the West Australian health
system also provides a combined care to the consumers. Health care funding is supported by the
government or by the private health care providers, largely depending on the Medicare facilities.
The services got are – skilled general practitioners, wide range of health services including child
health, school health, woman health, community and sexual health, organized programs on
immunizations (Devaux and De Looper. 2012). The public hospitals are owned by the
government of the state. There are some private hospitals that work in partnership with the WA
health to provide free service to the customers. The dental health in west Australia is in an
alarming position. Nearly half of the 6 years old babies have dental carries.
Medical system in other OECD countries
Balancing the health care and costs are the common motto of most of the OECD
countries. The recent economic and the financial crisis have brought about miseries in the fiscal
positions. It should be noted that the public spending on health care had always been voluptuous.
It has been reported that most of the OECD countries spend about 6 % of it GDP in health care
(Astolfi, Lorenzoni and Oderkirk. 2012). Health care outcomes can be measured on the basis of
certain factors such as the longevity, survival rates in patients, number of hospital readmissions
and the numbers of hospital discharges. It should be noted that the health status have changed in
the OECD countries for the past few years. It has been reported that Japan spends less on health
per capita income, but they have got a very high health status. Other countries like Iceland,
Sweden and Italy have also high health status. The oral health care is one of the major problems
in the OECD countries (Fineberg. 2012).

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The dental health is alarming in many countries such as Bolivia, Poland, Phillipines, Bolivia
including Australia. The middle of South America has some of the worst oral health of the
region.
A comparative study reveals that countries like Japan, Korea and Switzerland achieve best to
transform money into health outcome. Countries like Denmark, Greece, Hungary and Slovak
Republic are successful in improving the heath outcome keeping the spending constant.
Name of the top best hospitals in South Australia
 The Royal Adelaide hospital
 John Hopkin’s hospital
 The Repatriation general hospital
 Flinder’s Medical centre (FMC)
 Lyell McEwin hospital (LMH)
 Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Comparison of health care facilities between South Australia and other states of Australia
Population of SA is highly concentrated in the urban areas. 80% of the people reside in
Adelaide and the outer surrounding areas (Duckett and Willcox 2015). It also has the highest
population of older people, thus requires extra health facilities. It has been reported that the
health spending in Australia has increased by 2.9% in compared with many other OECD
countries and it has also been reported that most of the health facilities are consumed by the
couth Australian community (Farrar et al. 2013). It has been reported that the potentially
avoidable hospitalizations for COPD is highest in South Australia compared to the other states of

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Australia. Effective treatment for these clinical conditions can be got at the primary level of care,
and the cost effectiveness of the hospitalizations makes it easy for the people to get the desired
care. In South Australia, the age –sex standardized cases for asthma is about 64.7 per 1000-00
population, compared with the other OECD countries. It has been reported that the rate of
hospital admissions the South Australia is 323.8 per 100000 populations, which is considerably
higher considered to many OECD countries. One of the greatest problems in South Australia is
the problem of obesity, which cannot be found profoundly in the other states of Australia. There
are certain areas in health care where South Australia has to improve. Inspite of all these South
Australia performs well when it considering the overall population health. Recent studies say that
at 82.2 years, the life expectancy in Australia is the sixth highest compared to the other OECD
countries (Devaux and De Looper 2012). The state’s record on colorectal cancer and breast
cancer survival is among the best. It has also been reported that this state has one of the lowest
records of tobacco consumption.
Challenges faced by South Australia in terms of general and oral health.
In spite of the possible measures taken to improve the oral health in South Australia,
there are certain challenges that have to be accomplished. There are funding facilities for the
accessing to the dental health care but the loss of the common wealth Dental health program in
1996 reduced the funding availability for the treatment of 400000 South Australian card holders,
who were eligible for a dental care that is publicly funded (Hadad, Hadad and Simon-Tuval.
2013). This reduced their timely access to the dental care. Furthermore the large number of aging
population and the dental decay among the children are some of the challenges that are faced by
the South Australian health care (Arrow, Raheb and Miller 2013). IT has got high rate of hospital
admissions for the chronic diseases which have to be decreased considerably in the primary care.

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Another factor is the inaccessibility of the health care by the aged population due to the
transportation or cost (Hall. 2015).
Strategies taken up to improve health care facilities in South Australia
Proper strategies have to be taken up to reduce the number of factors such as hospital
admissions due to COPD, chronic illness (Elshaug et al. 2012). The government has to establish
a new model of care, where a wide range of services should be available within a local clinical
network. The country hospitals should have a strengthened capacity to deliver a basal level of
care to the local community and the broader district. The emergency services, acute and
intermediate care, community and primary care (Australian Research Centre for Population Oral
Health, 2012). The country general hospital should be able to develop highly specialized care
units, which should be close to the residential aged care. The health care facility should be
reachable to all the classes and even to the remote areas (Runciman et al. 2012). There should be
small rural health clinics that will support the fundamental health care services across the
countries. The existing health care setting should work on their workforce in order to deliver an
appropriate care (Baum. 2016). Proper programs should be arranged by the ministry of health
care in order to impart education to the hospital staffs and the patients for self management of the
diseases like COPD and obesity. Proper monitoring and proper discharge goals can help in
reducing the hospital readmissions. Proper and assessment of the signs and symptoms and risk
management techniques can improve the delivery of care to the patients (Grol et al. 2013).

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Emphasis also has to be given in improving the aboriginal health care. In a nutshell the steps that
is required are-
 Keeping patient as the primary objectives of all kinds of planning of the health services.
 Encouraging self management
 Recognition of the needs of people from culturally diverse background, such as the
aboriginals.
 To maintain a balance between the in hospital and the out of hospital care services.
 Providing intermediate or primary health care service regarding oral health
 Provision of appropriate Medicare services in terms of general and oral health.
In a word it can be said that a lot of researches are still required to understand the loops
and the flaws of the South Australian health care. And proper quality improvement and
the risk management strategies can advance the health care facilities of South Australia.

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