"Public hospitals as our society changes."

I attended Sydney Eye hospital for a post-operative check up and, having sat in the wrong waiting room, I was eventually found by a doctor, who I felt reprimanded me for getting lost, softening their tone when I explained there'd been some confusion over where I had to wait. Terrible waiting spaces in my opinion, with rows of chairs sat like in a theatre, with a blank wall to look at.

The doctor and I had an interesting conversation while they looked at the results of the examinations I'd had earlier, and they informed me I could have the remaining cataract removed, perhaps in eighteen months. When I showed them how my eyelid had dropped down onto my pupil after the first cataract was removed, they said I wouldn't get that fixed by the public health system, even though as I understand it, it's a common result of cataract removal, thought to be caused during the operation. I suggested that perhaps the other lid might drop to match the dropped one, or I might suddenly get rich enough to pay to have it fixed, and they agreed, not leaving me with a sense of confidence in or hope about the future for people here who might be considered poor, which I believe they told me would only get worse.

I'm old now, about to become a great grandparent, and I just hope that the baby who is coming into the family has parents who are ‘economically inspired’, rather than being inspired to raise their conscious like me, growing up with my naive belief that I lived in a lucky country, where everyone had a right to be treated equally, especially in hospitals; "fair go mate", and all that social justice stuff that we were taught to believe in. How sad I felt.