On three occasions in the last couple of years I’ve had the pleasure of attended at the accident and emergency department of our nearest metropolitan public hospital. The first accompanying my wife who was vomiting blood, the second time accompanying my wife who was having chest pain and lastly myself, accompanied by my wife, with a broken leg.
On each and every occasion we went by car as we could not afford the ambulance bill, and though it was early in the shift (before noon), the waiting room was packed, but on all three occassions, we spotted not one person who I would say fell within the definition of “middle class”. Why would they. That is why would they spend hours sitting a waiting room to save less than the cost of your average pub meal with a couple of beers/wines.
As to the people who were there, I would say 10 percent fell within the definition of “emergency” with the remainder being low income earnerswith general medical conditions, who were there because they couldn’t get an appointment with a doctor who bulk billed. How did I arrive at that opinion? Though a lot were complaining about how long it was taking to see a doctor, we waited no more a few minutes (chest pain) or up to an half hour (the broken leg). In fact as I hobbled out on crutches some of those who were complaining when I went in, were still waiting.
