HCCC, The Coroner, St Vincent's Hospital and the first Anniversary of Mato's death

Tuesday marks the first anniversary of my father's death at the hands of St Vincent's Hospital in Darlinghurst. I have been keeping the details under wraps on this blog for legal reasons.

But what I will say is that our family watched firsthand my father die due to a number of errors on that night and I have been trying to have this matter investigated by the HCCC (Health Care Complaints Commission) and those who failed their duty of care to my father on that night made accountable.

After a year of trying to get answers from St Vincent's, the HCCC and the Coroner who by the way has advised me that they simply dont have enough resources, I have still not been given an answer as to why my father died on the 17th of August 2009.

It seems that in NSW there are simply not enough resources for the State Coroner to devote to those who's deaths are questionable, medical professionals are not made accountable for breaching a hospital's own procedures (the Hospital has admitted this) and the HCCC who believe that hastening a man's death by undergoing a procedure in a public hospital is not outside normal practicing procedures under anaesthetic to warrant disciplinary action.

The public health system in Australia is a disaster. For the aged and those that are terminally ill, pray to god you die before you put your faith in the public health system. I have received nothing but stumbling blocks in my quest to gain justice for my father.

It seems that medical professionals are exempt and untouchable for being held accountable for their errors, that in my father's case, cost him his life. Terminally ill or not, this was not a decent way for any human being's life to end.

In my own profession, if I cause serious errors, it may cost me my job. Yet if you are a Dr who performs a procedure without obtaining informed consent, breaching hospital procedures and not monitoring the patient who's life is in your hands, you are protected by the Government bodies who's job it is to improve people's lives and to ensure you receive the treatment YOUR TAXES PAY FOR.

Why do Australians cop this from those who we elect to act in our best interests? Why do we allow those who are considered to serve the community and who supposedly choose to undertake one of the more respected and honoured professions be allowed to be ensconsed in a layer of protection from prosecution from the legal system by the medical mafia in cohorts with the Government who wish to hide the shocking state of our public hospital system and their own incompetence, lack of funding and failure to provide a good public health system in a supposed first world country?

This is why I would support a private health system and a dismantling of the public health system, this would mean accountability, a high level of service and alot of buerocrats out of work.

The US have got it right, I wouldn't mind paying a $15 copay for a top class level of healthcare where the possiblity of litigation makes sure the i's are dotted and their t's are crossed.