New Doctor
Issue No. 74
Summer 2000-2001
by Dr. Con Costa, Vice-President of the Doctors Reform Society
“Australians are facing the loss not just of Medicare but of their whole health system. When health is taken over by big business there is a loss of the doctor-patient relationship, patients losing their rights to good treatment, overtaken by the corporations’ right to profits. Doctors will lose the wide range of freedoms they have enjoyed in the practice of their craft since the time of Hippocrates.
“What we are faced with is not just a defence of Medicare. It is a defence of our health system, and in Australia, as in the USA, it should be supported by all health professionals, community groups, trade unions, health organisations and political parties. Our advantage is that the people still remember a health system that puts patients first.”