Reforming our health care system: time to rip off the band‐aid?

The health reform imperative is clear; it now requires national courage and leadership to implement it

While Australia has traditionally delivered some of the best health care outcomes in the world,1 there are increasing signs that our strained health care system is pushing the stress performance curve into the red. Benchmarks of hospital activity demonstrate ongoing difficulty;2 Local Hospital Networks scramble to meet demand despite annual federal government funding increases of 6.5%; and the grey literature attests to the unfolding human impact behind the figures.3 Patients deteriorate waiting for specialist assessment,4 and junior doctors find themselves trapped in increasingly overstretched, dysfunctional work environments. The much‐reviewed experience of Yumiko Kadota is not an isolated incident, with similar experiences documented regularly by doctors‐in‐training nationwide.5