Avast pirates! Aarrr!

The vernal equinox has passed. A winter of 'flu and ague has warmed into a spring of seasonal rhinitis.

[I just plugged "ague" into dictionary.com to check the spelling. The computer said, "Bargain ague! Find, bid, win it on eBay Australia.com."]

Every year, winter causes bed block. That is because the community, via the electoral system and the Q health decision makers, via their parietal lobes do not place value on the care of the sick elderly and therefore do not pay for extra beds and nurses for hospitals and staffing and GPs for nursing homes.

One Thursday not too long ago, the public hospital where I work, "A", was "ramping". That is, ambulances were unable to deposit their patients to trolleys in the Emergency Department because there were no more empty trolleys. In fact, every hospital in the city was "ramping".

One of Captain Bligh's Q health band of bilge rats rang to ask me if I would admit public patients to the co-located private hospital in order to take the pressure off another hospital, "B", located about 20 km South West of "A".

"Well, that would be fine," I said. "How will you pay me?"

Silence at the other end.

"I mean, are you going to pay me for time in attendance and all the associated on call work on an hourly rate or will I bill you with item numbers on a case by case basis?"

"Um, well, we thought, since you are an employee of Q health, that you would just sort of, you know, do it. "

Silence at my end.

But not for long.

I pointed out to my caller, Hook 'n crook, that Q health had given me no understanding or support over the past six years in my efforts to juggle a private practice and a public hospital appointment, so, although of course I'd like to help Q health, he had better go away and think up a better agreement and put it to me in writing.

Surprisingly, Hook 'n crook did that and came back with an offer to pay me Australian Medical Association schedule rates on a case by case basis. This was a surprise because the AMA rates are ludicrously high and have little or no relevance to the market place. Then it hit me: this is how my taxes are being spent.

Anyway, I said "yes" and the game was on. Several hours passed and I heard nothing and then a night and then a whole next day. Where were all these patients I was supposed to be admitting?

It came back to me that twelve patients at hospital "B" had been asked to make the ambulance journey to the private hospital, the one near hospital "A" and twelve of twelve had refused to budge an inch from their trolley in the corridor of their local facility.

Aye, me hearties!!