We know where the inefficiencies lie, and we know how to fix them. Now we just need the leadership willing to take the first step.
Having been immersed in the healthcare sector for most of my life, including two years as AMA Queensland president, a sobering reality has become clear to me.
The biggest driver of poor health outcomes, skyrocketing medical costs, and widespread apathy isn’t a new disease – it is inaction.
This paralysis infects every level of our healthcare system. The pressing question we must now ask is who actually has the courage and the appetite to drive meaningful change?
At the individual level, inaction is often a symptom of human nature.
How often do we tell ourselves, “I’ll start my exercise regime tomorrow”, or “I’ll quit smoking soon”?
As a GP, I regularly see patients delay visiting a clinic or opt out of vital, evidence-based screenings for cervical, breast, and bowel cancer. We find comfort in our routines, eating the same meals and maintaining the same mindsets, even when medical evidence urges us to change course.
The consequences are severe.
Take obesity, for example. The physical and financial tolls often remain unseen until later in life, quietly increasing the risks of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, osteoarthritis, and cancer. For the individual, this inaction eventually translates to a mounting pile of medical bills, endless medication costs, lost income from missing work, and a tragically diminished ability to care for themselves and their loved ones.
But we cannot place the blame entirely on the individual.
Both our public and private healthcare sectors are suffering the consequences of long-term, systemic inertia. While many organisations are quick to point the finger at the public for rising healthcare costs, the real culprit is often the organisation’s own failure to adapt, innovate, and break free from the safety of “business as usual”.
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Our public health services are burdened with underutilised facilities, toxic workplace cultures, and a glaring lack of strategic foresight.
Annual surveys consistently highlight dangerous pressure points in workplace health and safety, particularly for doctors in training. Yet, year after year, these red flags are met with zero strategic intervention.
Furthermore, a digital divide continues to widen between metropolitan and regional hospitals.
If we do not invest today in digital enablement, such as integrated electronic medical records (iEMR), the future cost of implementation will only skyrocket. Worse still, this technological lag comes with a massive opportunity cost, severely crippling our ability to recruit top-tier medical talent to regional areas.
Finally, at the highest level, political gridlock and the senseless waste of public dollars continue to astound me.
We desperately need a bipartisan vision for the health of our population, because our current care and funding models are entirely unfit for purpose. Political disagreements breed inaction, which drives up costs for everyone and ultimately costs lives.
For decades, the Medicare rebate has remained far too low to sustain a true bulk-billing model. The system fundamentally rewards episodic, reactive care while starving preventive medicine of the investment it desperately needs.
Currently, Australia dedicates a paltry 2% of its health budget to disease prevention. By increasing this investment to just 5%, we could drastically reduce the exorbitant downstream costs of treating preventable illnesses.
Inaction is a choice and it is a choice our healthcare system can no longer afford to make. We know where the inefficiencies lie, and we know how to fix them. Now we just need the leadership willing to take the first step.
Dr Nick Yim is the immediate past president of AMA Queensland.
