Australia offers alternative to US hospitals

(First of two parts)

A recurring subplot in many legal battles involving government officials and other high-profile personalities is the filing by the accused of a petition to leave the country for medical treatment, usually in the United States. Justified or not, the point is, such publicized petitions tend to draw attention to the common practice among Filipinos with the wherewithal to travel abroad to opt for the more advanced hospital facilities and highly specialized training of doctors in the United States.

It’s their prerogative, of course, but is the US really the only place where they can get the best treatment?

"Filipinos should consider Australia, instead of going halfway around the globe to the US," suggested David Rosback, executive director of the Australia-Philippines Business Council, whom I met on a recent trip to Melbourne. He was referring in particular to Epworth Hospital, a not-for-profit hospital, at the forefront of private health care in Australia.

"A physician of your former president, Cory Aquino, has referred patients there," he said, and "several Filipinos have also recently been recruited into the nursing staff." He arranged a visit to the hospital and a meeting with its chief executive, Denis R. Hogg.

Located in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond in Victoria state, Epworth is Australia’s largest single campus private hospital with services and facilities equal to those of the best hospitals in the world, if not more advanced, especially in cardiac diagnosis and cancer treatment. It recently acquired a state-of-the-art radiotherapy equipment for cancer treatment – one of only three such machines in the world. It will be installed at its soon-to-open Cancer Center, which will have the only above-ground radiotherapy treatment facility in the world.

Its endovascular unit was also the first in a private hospital to perform a procedure that does away with surgery for patients with aortic aneurysm. "We do more of this procedure than any hospital in the world," Hogg said during the interview.

As a not-for-profit hospital operating under the auspices of the Uniting Church, Epworth relies on earnings generated from patients and on funds donated through the Epworth Medical Foundation. All surplus revenue is reinvested in services improvement.

"This accounts for our history of many ‘firsts,’" said Hogg. "Our surplus revenue does not go to shareholders, like in many private hospitals."

Among these "firsts" are:

• Innovative IVF program resulting in the birth of baby from a frozen embryo (1973),

• Open heart surgery facility in a private hospital in Victoria (1980),

• Fully computerized Sleep Disorders Unit in Australia (1988), and

• Private hospital in Victoria with a renal dialysis unit (1990), stroke unit (1996), and dedicated endovascular suite (1997).

Epworth is also Australia’s first private hospital with a medically managed "Hospital in the Home" Unit, through which treatment of non-serious cases is brought to patients’ homes daily by doctors and nurses.

In addition, the hospital uses a new technology that enables its specialists to conduct "diagnosis by satellite," which spares a patient, say, from another state, the inconvenience and expense of traveling to Victoria. "Telemedicine linkup" enables doctors at Epworth to discuss the case with the patient’s attending physician and makes possible, say, the transmittal of x-rays via computer pathology.

But even as it taps modern technology to improve services, the hospital places a high premium on traditional patient care. "Compassion, a little bit of humor and a lot of holding hands are really worthwhile," award-winning nurse Ana Cameron was quoted in a local newspaper article as saying. She told a nursing conference in Boston how important it is – perhaps even more so now – for nurses to be "emotionally accessible to patients."

Hogg said, "Our overall objective is to be Australia’s leading provider of the best health services." This is the reason Epworth is "extremely careful" in recruiting staff, he said. "Thus we are quite impressed with the level of expertise of the Filipino nurses."

To alleviate the acute nursing shortage, a worldwide problem, a team from Epworth went on a recruitment mission to Singapore late last year. Ten of those hired were Singapore-licensed Filipino nurses working there, said Noel D. Armstrong, corporate affairs director. (Australia recognized their Singapore licenses since both countries are members of the Commonwealth of Nations. Otherwise, Filipino doctors and nurses wanting to practice in Australia are required to retrain and acquire a license there.) (To be concluded)