A Health Care Model for a Continent

Speech by the Minister for Trade The Hon Mark Vaile MP at the UBA Hospital de Clinicas Buenos Aires, Argentina, 30 August 1999

(Check Against Delivery)

Introduction

Members of the University of Buenos Aires administration, Dean Salomon Schachter and Senior staff of the Faculty of Medicine, and staff of the University Hospital de Clinicas.

I am glad to be here this morning to lend the Australian Government's support to this great project - a sign of the growing practical links that exist between our two countries. I am confident that the collaboration between Australian health care experts and your Hospital will produce a model for high quality, sustainable and affordable care in Argentina and throughout Latin America.

I understand this is the first time that an Australian team of health care experts has been asked to help restructure the core component of Argentina's health system, a University Hospital whose alumni include Nobel Prize winners.

Your Australian consultant team is led by Paul Gross, the former Commissioner of the National Hospitals and Health Services Commission. The Government of New South Wales, our largest state, has asked him to review its public hospital system - and he is a world-recognised leader in health financing and organisation.

He has assembled a formidable Australian and Argentinian support team for this project. Among the local companies, I am pleased to see one of Australia's largest workers compensation companies, HIH, already a significant force in workers compensation in Argentina. In addition, a former Ambassador to Argentina, Warwick Weemaes, is providing local project management support.

You already know from your contacts with the first group of clinical and financial consultants that Australia and Argentina have at least three overlapping interests.

The quality of our health care

Australians care about excellence in our health care system, which is why our health system is world-recognised as one of the most valued by its citizens.

Led by Dean Schachter of the Faculty of Medicine and the new Director of the Hospital, Dr Mazzei, and supported by the Foundation of the Hospital, UBA Hospital de Clinicas is committed to attaining excellence in health care. They do so in an era when new medical technology, an aging population and the growing demands of consumers are placing large burdens on government and private household budgets for health care.

Better health for all our citizens

Both our nations care about the health status of our citizens. Australia has set itself national health targets in heart disease, cancer, asthma, depression and accident prevention that require us to link prevention, care and education of the public and our doctors. We are well down this path in 1999 - but hitting national health goals is not an easy task. We have to lift our game.

Australia has made an exceptional effort to better diagnose and treat breast and other forms of cancer. I am proud to be a member of a Government that seeks the best in diagnosis and compassionate care - and we stand ready to share our research with you.

With the vision of Dean Schachter, and with Director Mazzei taking up his appointment two weeks ago, this consultancy links the restructuring of health care in a major teaching hospital with the restructuring of one of the largest medical schools in the world. This will allow UBA to take a leading role in all areas of prevention, health promotion, care and rehabilitation.

I am certain that the Australian experts can show Argentina how to weave the Internet, telemedicine and linkage of hospitals and remote doctors into an integrated health care system - a system that can both improve the health of populations in your cities and remote areas, and the quality of information and postgraduate education available to doctors in remote areas.

Common problems in the financing of health care

Both Australia and Argentina use a mix of federal and state or provincial financing of hospitals and health care. Whatever the method of health care financing, we aim to provide access to essential care regardless of the patient's income. And I know that UBA Hospital de Clinicas has a major role in caring for low-income groups in Buenos Aires.

Australia has steadfastly avoided the worst manifestations of what our doctors call "US managed care". Instead, Australia has turned to our best teaching hospitals and medical schools to find better ways to improve our health system - and I hope Argentina can obtain better access to our experts in this area.

I therefore welcome here today the coordinators of projects funded by the World Bank in Argentina. The visit to my country last year by a large World Bank team recognised that Australian health care expertise can help other nations transform their health systems.

Conclusion

I am sure that this new Australian-Argentinian collaboration at UBA will form a new bond between our two nations, a new field of common endeavour that will benefit not just our own countries, but many others as well.

Australia's expertise in health services, biomedical research, telemedicine and restructuring of university medical schools is widely recognised in areas where Australian and Latin American nations share common problems - and we can share some common solutions.

I wish UBA Hospital de Clinicas well in its efforts to re-establish itself as the major teaching hospital of Latin America. I am particularly glad that you are setting off on this task with such strong Australian links, as Australia is a recognised leader in medical school reform. The current problems of health care in this region and beyond, require leadership of the type shown by you in establishing this project.

Thank you.