Turnbull has until Christmas or else...

[Squawk]

Osteopaths - 4 years undergraduate study, call themselves doctors
Vets - 4 years undergraduate study, call themselves doctors
Tree Surgeon - no undergraduate study, call themselves "first mate"

Health Direct - staffed by nurses. Funny thing is, when you ring them they often suggest you go and see your GP.

[Psyber]

...Health Direct - staffed by nurses. Funny thing is, when you ring them they often suggest you go and see your GP.

Yes, and the SA Government is running TV advertisements saying in effect, "Don't clog up our emergency departments, stay home and go to your GP in the morning, or ring Health Direct."
Presumably, they think the private sector does take the load off the public sector and help it cope, even if our more socialist friends on this site don't..
Pity it is soon going to be "What GP? They are as rare as hen's teeth."

It is ironic that in the 1960s UK doctors were coming to Australia, but now Oz doctors would be better off in the UK.
The UK government realised in 2003, after only 54 years of the NHS, that the policies our government is moving towards don't actually work...
[Just like we adopted "open classrooms" about the time they were closing them.]

[MR FOOTY]

wat

[Jimmy_041]

wat

[Psyber]

Following up my comment above - at the bottom of page 1 about alternatve therapies - I came across this study today.
The website probably won't show the full text without a log in so I quoted the Abstract of the article:
http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/191 ... 90_fm.html

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the evidence for and against the effectiveness of reflexology for treating any medical condition.

Data sources: Six electronic databases were searched from their inception to February 2009 to identify all relevant randomised controlled trials (RCTs). No language restrictions were applied.

Study selection and data extraction: RCTs of reflexology delivered by trained reflexologists to patients with specific medical conditions. Condition studied, study design and controls, primary outcome measures, follow-up, and main results were extracted.

Data synthesis: 18 RCTs met all the inclusion criteria. The studies examined a range of conditions: anovulation, asthma, back pain, dementia, diabetes, cancer, foot oedema in pregnancy, headache, irritable bowel syndrome, menopause, multiple sclerosis, the postoperative state and premenstrual syndrome. There were > 1 studies for asthma, the postoperative state, cancer palliation and multiple sclerosis. Five RCTs yielded positive results. Methodological quality was evaluated using the Jadad scale. The methodological quality was often poor, and sample sizes were generally low. Most higher-quality trials did not generate positive findings.

Conclusion: The best evidence available to date does not demonstrate convincingly that reflexology is an effective treatment for any medical condition.