The ABC is faithfully reporting a comment made by a GP to the PM: that Australia should follow Cuba’s lead on health care.
But the so-called picture opportunity didn’t quite go to plan, with Dr Jeannie Ellis, the GP in charge of the hospital’s emergency department, telling Mr Rudd to look to Cuba for a solution to Australia’s ailing health system.
“Maybe Australia should take a leaf out of the Cuban healthcare system’s book where they have something like $20,000 less per capita and they have exactly the same healthcare indicators as Australia,” she said.
“I’ve lived in Cuba for a long time and I can tell you that they run a very, very good healthcare system and they get a lot of bang for their buck over there.”
Yeah, that’s why so many risk life and limb to get out of the place. Of the many horror stories that come out of Cuba, consider the following from Townhall journalist Humberto Fontova
Senor Marzo Fernandez, an economist who (until defecting in 1996) served as Secretary General of Castro’s Ministry of Nutrition, gets us started.
“The average height of Cubans has decreased by 8 centimeters in the past 25 years.” He reported on Miami television. “For the first time in Cuban history, thousands of Macrocepahlic children (abnormally large heads in proportion to their bodies) due to protein (primarily milk) deficiencies have been found in the eastern provinces.”
Fontova has documented the fall in many health indicators from the 1950s when Cuba was capitalist to the communist ‘paradise’ it is today. And training:
According to a report by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, more than 75% of “doctors” with Cuban “medical degrees” flunk the exam given by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates for licensing in the U.S. Most Cuba-certified doctors even flunk the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates’ exam for certification as “physician assistants,” making them unfit even as nurses.
Ironically, Rudd just announced another $600 million for doctor and nurse training.