Dying Woman Pleads for Surgery

(Sydney, Australia) A dying woman, Pamela Grady, 55, has publicly announced her dissatisfaction with the Australian National Health Care System for having to wait two months for life-saving surgery. While her health deteriorates, Grady is on a waiting list for a complex surgical procedure called a peritonectomy. The wait is blamed on the cost of the surgery and the limited resources of the hospital. Plus, the surgery is only performed at St. George Hospital and only one surgeon, Professor David Morris, in the entire country is qualified to perform the operation. According to Health Minister Morris Iemma,

"Professor Morris has made the clinical judgment that there are other cases more urgent than Ms Grady's."

"(The hospital) will arrange for Ms Grady's case to be reviewed this week to see if she requires her surgery sooner."

So, it appears that Pamela Grady is competing for a schedule opening with other people who are dying and awaiting life-saving treatment. Obviously, Grady is distressed, but it appears that others are in the same situation.

"I just thought when you've got a life-threatening illness, you have the operation done the next week. Apparently not," she said.

Naturally, Pamela Grady's case is disturbing and it's possible that public attention will allow her to receive her operation sooner. Nevertheless, from a big picture perspective, it seems virtually impossible to dispute the contention that a system of socialized medicine with obscene waiting times actually contributes to poorer health and earlier death. There also appears to be a dismal lack of planning by the central authorities when only one doctor in the entire nation is qualified to perform a particular procedure.

Of course, as we learned from another report, waiting times are so long that it's become generally recognized that patients may die before their turn is called. This explains why the Canadian socialized health care system includes computer-generated condolences in correspondence with patients in case they die while waiting for their appointments.