Aug 20 2008
Public Service Bashing
I love the old codgers who phone talk back radio. This morning there was a guy who thought that way to solve the health issues in Australia was to get rid of all the beaurocrats and replace them with health workers like doctors and nurses.
These thoughts are so shallow they almost don’t need a rebuttal, but they persist in our community so for what it’s worth…
There are more jobs than just health care in a hospital. Staff have to be paid, patients records have to be kept, stock levels monitored and ordered, bills paid. This is before the government reports that have to be submitted so that we, the public, can be comfortable that things are being run correctly.
A reduction in clerical and administrative staff does not result in a free up of resources for more nurses. Rather, it results in already overworked nurses having to cover admin jobs. A friend of mine recently returned to nursing after a few years in an office job. One of the first things he had to do was employ his clerical skills at the nursing station and fix up a spreadsheet. This is surely a ridiculous use of a highly skilled professional person’s time.
Public service bashing is a common practice at the moment. As employee of a government owned corporation I have been the recipient of it myself. In fact the public service can’t be as bad as they are made out to be. Where I live the trains run, the roads are fixed, the births are registered. Most government employees that I know are moderately hard working people who are dedicated to their jobs. They are generally paid at a lower rate than they could command in private enterprise, but this is offset by more flexible working conditions and hours.
Let’s not forget, too that the government is the largest single employer. So chances are when next your public service bashing at least one of the people you are talking to is a public servant.