Doctors, not bureaucrats, should decide on hospital beds for COVID elderly

It’s a national and ethical disgrace that Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services policy deprives COVID-affected aged care residents of hospital care, where this is medically justifiable (“Sick sedated, trapped in homes”, 12/8), based on a false premise of expediency. This is a decision for doctors, not bureaucrats.

If hospital beds are vacant they must be made available to the elderly, not held in the expectation of an apocalyptic increase in the number of a younger demographic requiring hospitalisation. That apocalypse has already happened, with numbers expected to fall.

Mark Awerbuch, consultant physician, Crafers, SA

Scott Morrison and Hugh Lunn (Letters, 12/8) miscomprehend columnists and commentators calling for an easing of pointless COVID restrictions. Panic shopping this week in New Zealand (“Coronavirus: Auckland outbreak puts Kiwis on alert”, 12/8), five months after foolishly believing they could eradicate coronavirus, proves that we should be preparing to live with this disease. Awaiting a vaccine is simply hoping for the best possible outcome and is an abandonment of responsible public policy and leadership.

Reportedly, 40 per cent of aged care residents typically pass away within nine months of admittance and, while all deserve proper shelter and care, nursing home deaths cannot dictate how the rest of society and the economy is managed.

The Prime Minister says we can’t keep turning the lights on and off — stopping and starting the economy every six weeks — and this policy setting of “off” is likely killing more people than it is saving. Pandemic paranoia (352 deaths, mostly ill and frail) is disproportionate to the nation’s normal annual death rate of 160,000 and endless lockdown is unsustainable.

Greg Jones, Kogarah, NSW

I have a wonderful daughter who is a dedicated pharmacist in Port Melbourne, dealing with a frightened, unwell public face to face on a daily basis. She doesn’t hide behind plastic shields when a traumatised customer needs one-on-one consultation to explain the medicines that have been prescribed.

No one realises just how much the local pharmacist has become the mental health provider in these troubling times.

They are proposing a bonus payment for bank workers who deal on the front line; what should they be doing for our pharmacy angels, who are there seven days a week amid every disease known to man, doing more than anyone should be expected to do?

I am so proud of my girl and so sad she can’t visit her old dad (72 years old) once in a while.

Terry Romaro, Perth, WA

When protests backfire

Those who are protesting about refugees being held in hotels (“Activists planning to defy protest court order”, 12/8) are responsible for their plight. They were held in benign conditions, with freedom of movement, on islands until Labor, the Greens and MSF (Doctors Without Borders) contrived to overturn government policy with the so-called Medivac scheme (“Immigration clear-out sees departed criminals fly charter,” 12/8).

A total of 184 men were brought to Australia under Medivac. Of those, 68 refused medical treatment and 45 were found not to be refugees. The cost of “held detention” (hotels) to house the 184 men is $510 million — that works out at $2.8m a head. Protests at the Kangaroo Point hotel in Brisbane cost taxpayers $270,000 a week — more than $14m a year in security and staffing.

Any protest should be against those who perpetrated this scheme at great cost to the community and to the detriment of those they claimed to help, who would have been better left on the islands.

Michael Cunningham, West End, Qld