I’ve heard mixed messages over the years about private patients being treated in public hospitals using their private insurance.
The standard line is that they will be admitted and given a private room if one is available.
When I worked for Alpine Health, the organisation actively encouraged private patients to use their insurance, to the point where Alpine Health paid their excess. The rationale was that Alpine Health made money on the deal.
Juliet and I were caught out when the twins were born at Wodonga Hospital and we had to pay an excess.
Given our multiple visits to Albury-Wodonga over 2-3 years we came to know that anything was possible at Wodonga Hospital in terms of treatment options.
We knew a case where a woman had a reversal of her tubal ligation. She was admitted to the public hospital and only paid the excess.
It was a surprise therefore to learn that’s not possible in Western Australia.
The front page of the Kalgoorlie Miner today tells the story of a woman with two children aged 11 and 6 by a previous marriage. She had her tubes tied after the second child was born, subsequently remarried and now wants to have more children.
Tubal ligation is a free procedure in public hospitals. The woman understands she has to pay for the reversal, but does not understand why it can’t be done in Kalgoorlie.
The doctors here have told her it would cost $3000 to have the procedure done at Kalgoorlie Hospital. Instead, she faces the prospect of spending $7000 to go to a private hospital in Perth, plus travel and accommodation, not to mention the disruption to her life and her family.
Western Australia banned the reversal of sterilisation in public hospitals in 2003 to free up hospital beds. It was classed in the same category as cosmetic surgery.
The system needs to be more flexible and it needs to take into account the needs of patients in remote areas.
The woman is quite prepared to wait for a theatre and a bed to be available in Kalgoorlie. The doctors are quite prepared to perform the procedure. What’s the problem?
Tomorrow the Kalgoorlie Miner will report the Health Minister as holding firm on the issue, insisting that Kalgoorlie patients must travel to private hospitals in Perth.
If people are prepared to pay obscene amounts of money for private health insurance then they deserve access that service, especially in remote areas.
I pay almost $200.00 a month for private health insurance, live in Mount Gambier, have no way of ever travelling to a hospital in Adelaide or anywhere else, so I would expect a service to match what I have had to budget excessively for, to be delivered, should I ever need it.