PUBH6003 Health Systems and Economics

Introduction:

Public Health problem either chronic or mental has an indirect impact on the country. There are many public health issues that the countries face, for instance, health diseases, diabetes, cancer, obesity, respiratory diseases, depression and any other kind of mental disorder.  Australia is among those countries who faces public health issues among its people. For example, about 54% of Australians face obesity, two million women in the country have cardiovascular disease and cancer caused about 29% of death in 2007 (Australian Government, 2007). However, breast cancer has been prevailing in Australia, about 19,371 Australian women have been diagnosed with the disease in 2019 (Australian Government, 2019). This report will discuss the public health issue that is breast cancer in Australia. This report will provide the readers what does the health system lack in order to prevent the disease and will give recommendations to curb the disease among the Australian women.

Breast cancer is the most deadly disease among women, more and more females are being diagnosed with breast cancer in the country. In 2015, it was recorded that breast cancer comes second in terms of most common diagnosed cancer in the country. Moreover, it was predicted that in 2019 it will be the most common diagnosed cancer in the country. There has been an increase of 3000 cases of breast cancer among women since 2015, there were about 16, 852 cases in FY15 where as in FY19 there are about 19, 371 cases among women (Australian Government, 2019). It has been estimated that about 3,058 Australian women died of breast cancer in FY19 (Rajagopal, Pranee & McBride, 2019).

Stakeholders:

The important stakeholders concerning this chronic public health issue are health care professionals, breast cancer patients and survivors. Moreover, the stakeholders in other sectors that can make an impact on the given issue are policy makers, government officials, donors and general population (Puzkho, Gagnon, Simard, Knoppers, Siedlikowsi & Bartlett, 2019).

Challenges to address Breast Cancer among women in Australia:

The reason why there is an increasing amount of cases of Breast Cancer in women is because of no proper research and care for the women. Without proper research and data, it is impossible for the government to prevent this public issue which is taking lives of many women in the country. Canin, Freund, Ganz, Hershman & Paskett (2014) in their workshop talked about the disparities in breast cancer care and research. The workshop invited all the policy makers, professionals and health care workers to get to the root cause of the issue. The workshop aimed towards health disparity that actually means a difference in the presence of an illness or the access to healthcare in any country. Moreover, the workshop used “health inequity” that means that people aren’t getting the highest level of healthcare, this ultimately impacts the health of the women who are suffering from a major disease.

Furthermore, another challenge that Australian women suffering from the disease experience is that they aren’t screened in earlier due to which they go through aggressive treatment due to intensification of the illness. Moreover, if a proper screening system of the disease is implied than there can be a reduction in the mortality rate and morbidity rate (Puzkho et al., 2019). It is the same in Australia, there aren’t any screening programs directed towards the women who can be a potential carrier of the cancer gene due to family history. The screening process includes mammography that entails an inspection of the breast of a woman. This will detect the symptoms of breast cancer in women before intensifying the disease, this will help the women carrying the cancer cells to treat it early (National Cancer Prevention Policy, 2014). This can help the country to reduce breast cancer among women and to reduce the mortality rate that has been increased since a few years.

Conclusion:

Breast cancer has impacted the women all around the world that also effects the countries in different ways like economically, socially and culturally. Australia is among those countries that has a higher percentage of breast cancer among all other cancers that has impacted the country in several ways. The country needs to tackle the challenges that are discussed in the report to reduce the total number of breast cancer cases in Australia. For instance, there is a difference in research and care of the breast cancer in Australia which was highlighted by a workshop conducted by health professionals. Another main challenge is that those women who have a higher chance to develop breast cancer needs early screening so that they are prevented from any future causalities. The important stakeholders need to collaborate with the policy makers and other government officials to work on the mentioned challenges.

Recommendations:

The Australian Government needs to focus on an introduce a policy that focus on the screening of the women with the potential of developing the disease in their latter life. The Government needs to employ health care professionals and must work with the breast cancer survivors to come up with a policy for country-wide screening. This will help the country to reduce the breast cancer cases in Australia that will ultimately decrease the mortality rate.

Moreover, the Government should hire good researchers and tools for in-depth research on how to close the disparity gap of health outcomes. This will provide the policy makers with the sufficient to make numerous other policies focusing on curbing the issue.