WE HAVE been fortunate not to have any issues with the health system in Tasmania and have received wonderful care from our fantastic general practitioner and the Launceston General Hospital.
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However, of late we are finding it is getting more and more expensive to have treatment from specialists.
I can see more awful events like the one at Bondi Junction happening because of the cost of seeking help through the mental health system.
When it costs upwards of $500 to see a psychiatrist or $600 to have a CT scan and Medicare, I recently learnt, no longer allows people to pay just the gap, it is going to leave a lot out in the cold to struggle through.
Why are consultations and scans not included for those with private health?
If a consultation and treatments such as a CT or MRI were included in private health, wouldn't that mean the cost normally outlayed for these by Medicare could go back into the public system?
But then that would give private health insurers more excuse to increase their premiums.
No wonder so many opt out and the strain on the public system increases. There is just no logic in it.
Kathryn Heathcote, Evandale
CONCERN OVER YOUTH RADICALISATION
SOCIETY'S young now have an outlook that they can just take a stranger's life by stabbing innocent people at will with no fear of the consequences.
It's time Australia started looking at these crimes as they do in the USA.
Do a man's crime means you do a man's time.
David Parker, West Launceston
A FAILED STATE
FORMER United Kingdom parliamentarian Enoch Powell once pronounced that "all political careers end in failure".
Will the United States shamelessly end in a failure of state, with the possibility of a second Donald Trump presidential term?
Kenneth Gregson, Swansea
CALL TO BE CHARITABLE
HOW utterly outrageous that the Paul Watson Foundation vessel, the Northern Horizon, may be forced to leave Hobart due to the high daily dockage rates TasPorts will impose on it.
We should be embracing this vessel with open arms so that it can do what most countries don't have the capacity to do and that is stop illegal fishing, massive krill fishing and illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean.
Australia is considered to be one of the most powerful anti-whaling countries, it is therefore incumbent on us to enable this vessel to get ready for its Southern Ocean voyage to stop Japan beginning yet again it's horrific whaling practices.
Trish Baily, Koonya
BEEF WITH DIFFERENT PRICES
CAN someone please explain to me why a piece of steak, some onions between two pieces of bread costs $15 at an AFL game, at UTAS stadium, yet only costs $8 at Agfest?
There is no difference in content at either place.
I love a steak sandwich, but no longer buy them at an AFL game at UTAS stadium.
Raymond Monery, Riverside
CROSS-SECTION OF COMMUNITY AGAINST PRISON
SPRAYING derogatory labels such as 'NIMBY' and 'vacuous' is a poor substitute for a credible discussion by The Examiner's (Wednesday, April 24) editorial regarding a new Tasmanian prison near Deloraine.
Burnie, Devonport and Launceston have much higher crime rates than small towns in the Meander Valley.
A prison should not be imposed on this peaceful farming location just 2.2 kilometres from the historic Bowerbank Mill entrance to Deloraine.
Why should a town of 3000 people whose picturesque location is chosen by thousands of visitors be forced to bear the brunt of an industry supporting 270 high security prisoners?
From my generational farming family in Exton, to local and visitor clients of my small business in Deloraine, it is a shared view that a prison will bring a host of negative impacts on the region.
A major adult prison built to maximum security will be highly visible, negatively affect the demographics of the Deloraine area and overwhelm our housing, health and community services.
Deloraine does not even have a functioning police station.
While there are some local people in favour of a prison believing they can profit from it, they have not considered the well-researched consequences of prisons built close to small towns.
The No Meander Valley Prison group supporters are farmers, small business owners, tourism operators, artists and residents who are all opposed to the prison at the Ashley Youth Detention Centre site.
And we are opposed to shifting it along the road to other small towns in the Meander Valley.
Elizabeth Walker, NMVP Spokesperson
