• WHO Director-General reminds health officials: never forget the people, 22 May 2011
• Health Credit Cards to Heal Hole in Patients' Pockets, 22 July 2009
• Advisory Committees in Health and Aged Care, October 2008
• National Academies Forum workshop, September 2008

WHO Director-General reminds health officials: never forget the people

Dr Margaret Chan
Director-General of the World Health Organization
Address to the Sixty-fourth World Health Assembly
Geneva, Switzerland
16 May 2011

Mister President, excellencies, honourable ministers, distinguished delegates, friends from the UN family, ladies and gentlemen,

I have been doing this job now for nearly five years. Sometimes during meetings, I have to interrupt and make a simple request: remember the people.

Read more at: http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2011/wha_20110516/en/index.html

Health Credit Cards to Heal Hole in Patients' Pockets

A recent Centre for Policy Development paper, Out of Pocket: Rethinking health copayments by Jennifer Doggett, proposes radical but practical ideas to deal with these problems. If Nicola Roxon and Kevin Rudd want to address this major gap in the reform options currently on the table, Doggett's ideas might be a good place to start:

• Health Credit Cards would allow Australians to put out-of-pocket health expenses on the government's tab - with minimum monthly repayments capped according to income

• A single safety-net would combine the PBS and Medicare safety-nets, the Medicare tax off-set, and various other forms of special assistance under the one safety-net

• Greater flexibility within the copayments system would give people the option, for example, of paying extra for hospital services in return for higher GP rebates. It might also tie rebates to services rather than providers, so that people can opt to receive the same services from alternate providers

Download 'OUT OF POCKET: RETHINKING HEALTH COPAYMENTS' by CPD fellow Jennifer Doggett

Advisory Committees in Health and Aged Care

Since its election, the Rudd Govenrment has created ten new advisory bodies in the health portfolio, in addition to the 100 or more already established.

We have attempted to list all these advisory bodies. advisorycommittees.pdf

National Academies Forum workshop

Professor Leeder moderated the National Academies Forum workshop Innovation system review in Canberra, 11 September 2008. A summary of the workshop is available at http://www.naf.org.au/11september08-summary.pdf