Australia is ranked sixth-largest country in the world depending on the total land area. With a population amounting to around 26 million people, Australia is a nation of highly urban residents with the majority of its citizens residing in cities like Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, and Melbourne. The country’s healthcare system is one of the most advanced in the world offering some of the best services as compared to other developed nations. This explains the reason why Australia has one of the highest life expectancies across the globe. This sector is mainly comprised of two major components, the public healthcare system, and the private health system with each assigned different mandates in the provision of medical services (Dixit & Sambasivan, 2018) . Public health facilities and Medicare systems offer low-cost or free medical services to all citizens of Australia while the private health system gives a patient a choice of specialized care outside government-run facilities. Primary providers of healthcare in the country include nurses, medical specialists, general health workers, and practitioners (Leeder, 2003) . The paper focuses on the Australian healthcare system as compared to that of the United States. The differences and similarities between the two are highlighted. The main areas of emphasis include costs, politics, women’s health, child care, and disease management. It also focuses on health promotion, behavioural, and lifestyle effects on general health.
The Role of Government
The Australian government is made of three levels namely the federal, the state or territorial, and the local government. Each of these arms is responsible for certain functions in the provision of healthcare services to the citizens. The federal government plays the primary role of providing funding to enable medical services provision by offering direct financial payment to various professionals, the building of hospitals, and buying of the various equipment required in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. The Australian government has also put in place various frameworks to allow the equitable provision of medical services to all citizens. Some of these policies include the building of healthcare facilities depending on the population and location, improving infrastructure to allow better accessibility and recruitment of medical professionals to meet the growing demand for healthcare providers. The Australian healthcare system scores better in terms of equity as compared to other developed nations like the United States (Janssen, Shepard, Katzmarzyk, & Roubenoff, 2004) . This is due to the lower population the country has when compared to the U.S. It also means that the ratio of doctor to patients is high allowing each medical professional to serve fewer numbers while giving better services.
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In terms of cost, the Australian healthcare system accounts for about 10 percent of the country’s GDP. This was more than double the percentage the United States spends in financing her medical services. The Australian federal government funds the bulk of this expenditure accounting for around 41 percent of the total. The state and the territorial governments form the second-biggest source of funding for the Australian healthcare system contributing about 27 percent of the total expenditure. Other main financiers include private insurers, private individuals, and non-governmental entities.
Impact on the Vulnerable Population
The Australian healthcare system is structured towards providing equity in service delivery to all vulnerable members of society. This group is made up of homeless people, Aboriginal tribes, those facing various criminal procedures, drug users, and those with various forms of disabilities. As it is the goal of Australia and many countries to put the affairs of the vulnerable citizens at the forefront when developing the healthcare system, several challenges make this objective hard to attain. They include income inequality, lack of transport, an unreliable fixed address, and long hours of waiting which disadvantage such people in medical care provision. Just like the United States, one’s race and language play a critical role in determining the accessibility of healthcare services (Braithwaite et al., 2017) . For instance, non-English speaking patients may wait for long hours before they could be served by medical professionals due to the language barrier. The Australian government is striving to ensure that such members of society access the required health services without facing barriers due to their conditions. It uses the Public Healthcare (PHC) system to ensure that this goal is achieved. This program is primarily funded by the government in terms of human resources, infrastructure, and other capital resources that are necessary for the provision of medical services.
Women’s Health and Maternal-child Health
Australia ranks higher than the United States in terms of women and maternal healthcare. This is brought about by a lower population of the former and high rate of healthcare professionals when compared to the U.S. Various factors define the general health status of most Australian women and girls helping the government formulate several policies as a response. With the country’s overall healthcare system being one of the best in the world, the Australian female population has a higher life expectancy as compared to that of males due to improved medical services. However, various factors stand in the way of preventing the government from achieving equitable healthcare for both men and women. The female gender experiences the highest number of sexual violence and chronic illnesses (Mitchell, Shaban, MacBeth, Wood, & Russo, 2017) . Women also led in the number of lifestyle risk factors like obesity which greatly contributed to the rise in general ill-health. Despite this, the Australian government has implemented various policies that allow women better access to quality medical care. It relies heavily on the pattern of health service and individuals’ help-seeking behavior to identify levels of inequality and come up with better measures to address the issue. To achieve equitable healthcare services between men and women, the government launched various types of services geared towards this goal. One such program is the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) which offers therapeutic and diagnostic services, pathology services, and medical practitioner attendances. In recent years, more women have claimed to have benefited greatly from this program as compared to men.
In terms of maternal healthcare, Australia is known as one of the safest places women can give birth in with a high rate of survival assured. However, there exist significant inequalities based on race and social status. Aboriginal and other indigenous tribes find it hard to access quality maternal care as compared to white women. Poverty and their preference for rural areas contribute greatly to this phenomenon. In recent years, the government has been increasing its efforts to ensure that such communities can access maternal health care and prevent complications or fatalities that may occur as a result of the inadequacy of such services. One strategy it is using is by deploying mobile doctors to such regions.
Disease Management
Australian healthcare has more advanced disease detection and management system as compared to the United States. The huge budgetary allocation contributes greatly to this phenomenon with the government committed to having more control over both public and private healthcare providers. With the doctor to patient ratio being higher than that of the United States, the Australian healthcare system can have in place better and timely preventive measures allowing earlier detection. Several factors contribute to this variation in disease management between the two nations. The first major contributor is the higher cost of accessing medical services in the United States as compared to Australia. With a large number of people unable to raise the required charges, they may keep away from health facilities making it hard for the U.S government to detect and control most of the communicable diseases. This is not the case in Australia as the government subsidizes most of the medical care costs enabling as many citizens as possible to visit healthcare facilities as possible. This makes medical stakeholders put preventive measures at the earliest stage in case of a disease outbreak (Zwar et al., 2006) . The second contributor to this variation in disease detection and management between the two countries is the income disparity among various communities. The United States has higher income inequality making a large number of people unable to access timely medical care and in turn contributing to the easy spread of communicable diseases to an uncontrolled level. This is not the case in Australia as the majority of its citizens can afford quality medical services at a lower cost.
However, Australia, like the United States continues to experience major challenges in minimizing the effect of non-communicable diseases. The first obstacle to achieving this objective is the lack of accountability among various stakeholders in the Australian healthcare system. The government didn’t undertake proper monitoring of programs put in place to tackle some of the non-communicable diseases that continue affecting Australian society. Another challenge in addressing this issue is the lack of political and social acceptability of the strategies put in place. This denies them the much-needed support for proper implementation.
Theory and Practice
The theory and practice ensure that each stakeholder in the healthcare sector undertakes his/her mandate in the most appropriate manner while following certain guidelines. To ensure the provision of quality medical services, Australia has set up various strategies to ensure that healthcare professionals get the appropriate knowledge and skills that will be necessary for tackling current health problems. The training of medical practitioners is carried out through vocational education training (VET) and tertiary level. The university sector carries the bulk of healthcare trainees who are taught various roles and skills in preventing and treating different ailments. In Australia, institutions entrusted with offering medical courses are also given the mandate to set their examinations to gauge the understanding of their students. This is contrary to the United States where each medical student must undergo a national examination before being accredited to practice healthcare services. However, the Australian Medical Council monitors accreditation procedures for every institution allowed to offer medical courses to ensure that the required quality is maintained. Another contrast between the two countries is that in the United States, the medical school owns a referral hospital where trainees can sharpen their skills before being allowed to operate as healthcare professionals. This is not the case in Australia as the institution doesn't need to have a teaching health facility (Geffen, 2014) . Despite exhibiting sharp differences in mode of accreditation, both Australia and the United States share certain traits in terms of training medical practitioners. The first similarity is that both nations adopt graduate entry in training healthcare professionals with most of the courses taking 4 years. Secondly, both countries emphasize on medicine, surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics, primary care, and psychiatry as compulsory units before a student could be given clinical placement.
Health Promotion
The Australian Health Promotion Association (AHPA) is one of the bodies mandated with carrying out sensitization of the general public on best practices to maintain their health. It takes such steps to ensure that every citizen takes preventive measures to reduce the risks of contracting various illnesses. This has significantly contributed to the improvement of Australian healthcare to be one of the best in the world. Major areas of focus include sanitation, immunization, health and safety in workplaces, and better food and water supply system. Other major points the healthcare sector emphasizes include safe birth practices and quarantine during the outbreak of highly communicable diseases like Covid-19. Australia shares the same goal with the United States in ensuring her citizens live in a clean and healthy environment and avoid many of the preventable illnesses.
Behavioral and Lifestyle Factors on Healthcare
Australia just like the United States continues to struggle with a high number of chronic diseases emanating from the lifestyle and behavioral determinants of many of its citizens. They form the modifiable risk factors since they can be changed by one deciding to quit certain behavior or mode of life. Some of the lifestyle traits that greatly contribute to the rise in the number of chronic diseases include lack of physical exercise, smoking, poor diet, and alcohol or drug abuse. Those behavioral factors are majorly responsible for the rise in cancer, diabetes, and heart disease among many adult Australians. To understand this problem, three major lifestyle behaviors are pointed out as carrying the bulk of the leading risk factors.
Obesity is the first major concern for the Australian healthcare stakeholders who see it as beyond the manageable level. It is blamed for the rise in heart disease and diabetes cases. Some of the biggest contributors to the high number of obese citizens include a lack of exercise and uptake of an unhealthy diet. The Australian government and other organizations have always encouraged their citizens to shun activities that lead to unchecked weight gain. The problem affects more indigenous people as compared to other citizens pointing out the existing disparity in access to quality diet and proper medical care. Overall, the number of adult citizens obese or overweight in Australia makes up around 67% of the total population. The percentage is higher as compared to the United States which has around 42% of the total obese adults.
The second behavioral risk factor that has greatly affected the Australian healthcare system involves the consumption of alcohol. This problem accounted for around five percent of the total number of injury and disease burden in the country. Excessive alcohol consumption has been blamed for the rise in the number of liver disease, suicide, and stroke. However, the rate of alcohol consumption in Australia was significantly lower than that of the United States. This is an indication of the success of various strategies put by the Australian government and other medical stakeholders in curbing the effect of irresponsible alcohol consumption. Lastly, smoking forms the third major risk factor in chronic diseases contributing greatly to the rise in the number of lung cancer cases.
Australia, being one of the most developed countries has made major strides in improving the healthcare system to become one of the most advanced in the world. This is brought about by several policies and strategies the government and other stakeholders have put in place creating a unique structure as compared to other countries. The Australian healthcare system is compared closely to that of the United States bringing several variations and similarities between them. Major differences occur in accreditation processes, medical services accessibility, and cost. Other major healthcare variations occur in their impact on vulnerable members and disease management. However, the Australian and the U.S healthcare systems exhibit several similarities in various areas like health promotion, training of medical practitioners, and non-communicable disease mitigation.
References
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