For most of us, Covid has been a disaster. For the elites, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Especially politicians and bureaucrats. First, the China virus gave them the excuse they’d been waiting for to enact “states of emergency” and seize virtually unlimited, unchallenged power. For faceless public health bureaucrats, long used to labouring in obscurity with only a bloated public service pay-packet to salve their stifled egos, the opportunity to play rockstar-god has clearly been intoxicating beyond measure. They’ve taken to the daily public pressers and omnipotent “health directives” like a hillbilly to prescription opioids.
Second, when they screw up, as they inevitably and spectacularly have, well: just blame it all on Covid.
The very first most people ever heard of the China virus was hysterical reports that Italy’s and Spain’s hospitals were “overburdened” by Covid. Bodies piling up! Doctors collapsing in tears!
Except that that is nothing unusual in Italy or Spain. To put it kindly, their health systems are a dog’s breakfast. Every regular ’flu season pushes them to the edge. Spain’s hospitals were at 200% capacity in 2017: wards meant for a maximum of 18 people were stacked with up to 40. Britain’s revoltingly-lauded NHS is little better, threatening to fall over nearly ever winter. Despite Piers Morgan’s thundering bullshit about “bodies piling up in hospitals”, during Britain’s first Covid wave, the NHS had four times as many empty beds as usual.
The USA hospital system has never come close to being “overwhelmed” by Covid.
So when Australia’s politicians and public health troughers start squealing about “Covid”, pardon me if I mutter, “Bullshit!”
Doctors have warned that the health system is so overburdened by Covid-19 that people are dying from other treatable conditions as patients are stuck in ambulances and the corridors of emergency departments, unable to access a hospital bed.
A discussion paper drawn up by top health officials from four states and presented to a recent urgent roundtable of health ministers warned the hospital system was buckling under the strain of not only Covid-19 but also routine care, while doctors warned conditions deemed low priority would develop into life-threatening emergencies as treatment was deferred.
Of course, the doctors’ union never misses an opportunity to put out its hand for more taxpayers’ money for its well-heeled members. Someone’s got to pay for Poppy ’s and Hugo’s private schooling, after all.
“The health system doesn’t look after just Covid and it’s already full,” said AMA deputy president Chris Moy. “We’re seeing that Covid on top of the existing chronic pressures is a perfect storm and it is really basically causing the hospital system it to overflow and be overwhelmed […]
Scott Morrison is facing calls to boost funding for public hospitals.
So, it’s the usual “gibsusdat munny” line. Except, wait a minute… “It’s already full”?
In other words, the hospital systems – which are run by the states, not the federal government – are falling apart without Covid. Australia has about 11 million hospitalisations per year. Covid patients last year accounted for about 2,600 of those. Currently, there are just under 1,500. Covid patients are about 1% of total hospitalisations.
If just 1% more patients are enough to push your hospital system to collapse, then, to use a pithy Australian saying, “the c*nt’s f**ked”.
It’s not as if the federal government doesn’t already give the states money, hand over fist, already.
A spokesman for Federal health Minister Greg Hunt said that the Coalition had increased total funding to state hospitals by 71 per cent since 2013.
“All ministers recently signed onto a five-year agreement which includes an additional $35bn in funding,” Mr Hunt’s office said. “We’ve also invested an additional $6bn in hospitals funding through the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Commonwealth funding for hospitals increases from $26bn, to $27bn, to $29bn to $30bn per annum, having been $13bn when we came into office. There is no barrier to any state or territory matching or exceeding the commonwealth investment in their own hospital systems.”
The Australian
So how have the states been managing all that money? None too well, it would seem. Even West Australia, awash with Chinese money for iron ore and with virtually no Covid cases in months, has a hospital system teetering on collapse.
And what about Australia’s covid capital, Victoria? Premier “Dictator Dan” Andrews publicly promised $1.3 billion for 4,000 extra ICU beds, nearly 18 months ago. Not one has materialised.
So, what have premiers been spending their taxpayer’s money on? The Labor states, notably Queensland and Victoria, have seen an explosion in hiring public servants. Queensland’s has grown by over 17%. Victoria’s has grown even faster: another 50,000 public servants last year alone.
Where are they all going? Not to Victoria’s hospitals, obviously. In fact, the Andrews Government has more people working in its communications offices than in its public health department. The premier’s own office employs more than twice as many staff as the prime minister.
Australia’s Covid dictator premiers have let their hospital systems slide to the brink of collapse for years. Covid is merely a convenient excuse for their own incompetence.
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