A few months back, I was hospitalised as the result of a
seizure. For better or worse, I survived the thing, even though I would have
been quite happy had my time on this mortal plane ended there. What I am
content with and what The Universe decides as an appropriate course for me often
differ, so once more, I must suck it up and continue on my way around The Coil.
For some reason, I have been kept here because I haven’t accomplished whatever
it is that I am supposed to have sorted before I’m allowed to leave this
existence.
Despite what you may have heard elsewhere, this wasn’t my
first rodeo but the circumstances surrounding it deserve a bit of analysis to
put the whole episode in context. Roughly a week before my hospitalisation I
suffered a minor injury to the cuticle of my (L) ring finger and figured it
would sort itself out until a couple of days later when an infection developed.
I sought medical advice on a Saturday morning which meant I didn’t see my
regular GP, but the practice owner isn’t a poor substitute. He prescribed me
Resprim Forte (Trimethop/Sulfametho) and advised I apply Betadine Topical
Solution to the affected area. Rustling up my last twenty bucks, I donned my
mask and headed off to the chemist for supplies, choosing medicine over food
once more, I hoped I had (but knew I didn’t) enough to eat for the next ten
days.
That evening I made something for dinner, I can’t remember
what, but you can be assured that it was not the most nutritious of meals. It’s
not as if I can’t cook a healthy meal, it’s that I can’t afford to do so more
than once a fortnight, often not even with that frequency. So, it was likely
beans on toast or a sausage on white bread with sauce. This is depressing when
one knows that they have the ability to prepare and consume much more wholesome
meals but are hobbled by the excuse that passes as “social security” in
Australia. I will return to the inadequacies of our poorly funded “safety net”
later because we first must speak of my hospitalisation.
So, I took the Resprim with my meal and the Naproxen I use
for my arthritis which must be consumed with food lest it strip your stomach
lining. Everything seemed normal when I went to bed that night but when I
awoke, I vomited. Most of it was dry retching but I did manage to expel some of
the water I had attempted to drink in an effort to sooth my throat. Despite
this not being commonplace for me, I dismissed it and went about my day. Deciding
to deviate from standard practice, I made lunch because the anti-biotic was
supposed to be taken twice a day. Thinking this would enable me to take the
prescribed amount of Naproxen at the same time seemed like a win-win. Eating
only one meal a day means I only get half of my arthritis meds most of the
time, so the Resprim was something of a silver lining.
Or so I thought. After lunch I felt a little queasy and lay
on the couch for a couple of hours before getting up and going for a walk. On
my return I made dinner, ate it, took the medications, and went to bed early. After
a repeat of the previous morning, I was dubious about another lunch experiment
but went for it anyway. The results were replicated, as was my response. Wake,
walk, return, cook, consume, meds and bed. Once more I threw up in the morning.
This time there was some substance to it, but I dismissed it in so much as I
would be seeing my GP for our regular monthly appointment the next day and
could discuss it with him. I didn’t eat that day.
Wednesday morning rolled around, and I didn’t throw up.
Maybe because I didn’t eat on Tuesday or because not eating meant I didn’t take
the medications. Whatever it was, I informed my GP of what I considered to be
an adverse reaction and he enlightened me that Resprim, in his opinion, was an
“interesting choice” before offering to write me a script for a different drug.
I turned it down as I couldn’t afford to pay for it but asked if I should
continue with the Resprim. He suggested I do so. In hindsight, I should’ve
taken the script because I managed to borrow some money later that day which I
spent on food to facilitate the taking of the drugs. I threw up again, but this
time my body didn’t wait until morning. It was maybe twenty minutes after
rinsing my plate when I took the two steps required to reach the bin from the
couch before losing my guts.
I waited until I was sure that I had expelled all that there
was to be expelled before going to bed. When I woke, I took the recycling down
to the centre and collected my vouchers which I presented at Woolies where I
cashed them in for bananas. You may be asking yourself why bananas are
important to this narrative but if you ever cross paths with a supermodel or a
bulimic ask them what the best foods are to throw up and bananas will be near
the top of the list. The benefits of vomiting banana as opposed to steak are basic.
Throwing up Fauna will always be more traumatic than throwing up Flora, but
banana has a unique property in so much as it tastes and feels the same coming
up as it does going down.
Equipped as well as I could be, a period of isolation was
self-imposed in order for me to regurgitate my cavendish in the privacy of my
own home. The logic of continuing to consume medication that was making me
physically sick is simple. My left ring finger is the digit most often used to push
the E and S buttons, as well as the shift key on my keyboard so to lose it by
amputation would diminish my ability to type and a few spews after I’d absorbed
some of the drug was probably worth it. My logic was flawed and my finger kept
getting worse despite the salt water immersions and regular Betadine
applications so when I threw up the last Resprim, I didn’t renew the script.
Mainly because I had no money to pay for it but also because my ossiphageous
wasn’t in the mood for more torture. I stopped eating on the Friday.
An enforced period of fasting is nothing new to me, nor to
anyone who has been forced to subsist on Government “benefits” (fuck, it pains
me to refer to them as that) but this time, for some reason, was different. As
I’ve already mentioned, my diet is not one that nutritionists would champion
but I’m pretty sure they’d prefer me eat something as opposed to nothing, but
short of going hat in hand to friends and family begging for them to feed me, I
was on my own with a bare pantry. The weekend dragged on and by the time it was
Monday, I was four days without food and very open to accepting an offer of
someone else paying for me to get drunk.
It is an interesting phenomenon that one experiences only when
attempting to subsist on the poverty inducing payments that the Government
forces us to eke out an existence on, in so much as people who are unwilling to
lend you twenty bucks so you can buy some food will happily spend more on
getting you wasted because they need the company. Knowing that I would end up intoxicated
while unfed was in no way a deterrent to getting drunk for free because I’ve
given up. Seriously, I knew that getting pissed on a stomach so empty that I
hadn’t shat in a week would not end well but I did it anyway. Judge me all you
want – it won’t change anything, nor will it influence any decision I make in
the future.
So, I got drunk. Must’ve borrowed money from someone I don’t
remember to buy a six pack after I left The Pub and someone else, I also don’t
remember must’ve given me some weed because I had both when I got home. Cracking
the beer and rolling a joint, I relaxed in the knowledge that in the morning,
after the rent was paid, I would have a rough hundred bucks to get me through
the next four days until The Housemate gave me his share. Smoking and sipping,
I realised that the beer would take a lot longer to consume than the joint, it
became obvious that I would have to roll another one.
Dedicating myself to the task of finishing a joint and the
beer at the same time resulted in me rolling multiple joints, picking up the
beer, feeling how full it was and rolling another joint. I didn’t drink from
the can, just kept picking it up to ascertain its volume before placing it back
on the table. This self-defeating tactic was instrumental in my hospitalisation.
It was not the cause of the seizure, as has been expressed by every medical
professional I have discussed the matter with since, but by prolonging my time
in the living room instead of retiring to The Cave as was my intention meant
The Housemate was present when I seized up.
Waking to two Ambos in my living room was pretty fucking
annoying especially because I had felt the seizure coming on and wanted to be
in The Cave when it hit. Had I been smart enough to have collected up my smoke
and drink, walked into The Cave, parked my arse on the bed and collapsed in
there, I could’ve died in peace. Or, as with all of my previous seizures, woken
up a while later feeling like shit. Instead, I stayed on the couch and
according to The Housemate, was mid sentence, when I grabbed my left shoulder,
collapsed to my right and started shaking.
Despite my protestations, I ended up in an ambulance but not
after polishing off the joint, attempting to finish my beer, and fail at
rolling a cigarette to the point where I made The Housemate roll it for me. I
put the beer in the fridge, somehow managed to find the most recent copy of
Meanjin (priorities, right?) so I would have something to read for the hours I
would inevitably spend in ER before being told I was fine and to walk my sorry
arse back home.
While I was standing next to the Ambulance, finishing my smoke
and chatting to the Ambo who was preparing the gurney for me, her colleague was
busy telling The Housemate that I would most likely die from organ failure and
that I would need a transplant but wouldn’t get one because I’d “done it” to
myself. This is where I call Bullshit. It wasn’t organ failure. Trust me, I’ve
had organ failure before. It was a fucking seizure caused by an extended period
of regurgitating everything I ate and four days of not consuming any food. Sure,
the alcohol was the trigger, but my liver wasn’t failing and if it was, I would
have recognised it and demanded I not receive someone else’s organ. I’d rather
die, and I need to be cremated whole, so that means storing a liver or some
such other nonsense for another twenty odd years until I proper cark it. Odds
are, if they had done a transplant, they would’ve chucked the old one in a bin
and that would have proper pissed me off.
Usually, I am a staunch defender of health care workers
(especially Ambos and Nurses) but the unprofessional manner in which that one
Ambo acted really irks me. Without having even taken my temperature, heart rate
or blood pressure, she diagnosed me with organ failure (didn’t mention it to
me) and succeeded in scaring the shit out The Housemate to the point he thought
I would be leaving hospital via the morgue. But I wouldn’t find out about this
misinformation until I walked back through the front door a day later.
First, however, I went to hospital and while the ambulance
was ramping, the deceitful Ambo went inside to tell some fibs while the nice
Ambo attempted to assure me that the wait wouldn’t be too long. To be fair, I
didn’t sit in the ambulance for very long, maybe fifteen minutes, but I’ve
spent enough time festering in hospital corridors to know that it would be
hours before I was attended to. At this juncture my subconscious decided it
would be a good time to have another seizure just to speed shit up. With the
benefit of hindsight my subconscious has realised this was a mistake.
My shirt and singlet were cut from my body, I was
anaesthetised before some numpty failed at shaving my beard so I could be
intubated. A catheter was inserted only after I’d pissed my pants and I was
transferred to ICU. At, or around, this point phones started ringing on both
sides of The Ditch.
The way I see it playing out is – The Hospital called The
Old Man (my only listed emergency contact) in the middle of the night, who then
called The Maternal Unit in Aotearoa which I presume was quickly followed by
her announcing the fact to her entire following on facebook, because, according
to the desk nurse, people had been calling for the entire time I was in the
drug induced coma. What shits me to tears, is that they gave these people my
personal medical information. There is a reason why The Old Man is the only
emergency contact on my file – I trust him to be able to keep private shit,
private. TMU, on the other hand will quite readily inform all and sundry of my
ailments whenever given an opportunity to do so. This is why I had a note added
to my file to not disclose any information to her under any circumstance except
my death.
Someone didn’t read my file.
Now I can already hear some of you crying foul, rolling out
the mother defence and her right to know the medical condition of her child. In
some ways, I agree with you, my immediate family should know that I’ve been
hospitalised, which is why The Old Man is my emergency contact, but the rest of
the world doesn’t need to be informed. You may be asking yourself why I would
be complaining about my medical information being disclosed while disclosing my
medical information in a publicly accessible document.
First, I’m disclosing it, not some phone jockey who either
can’t or doesn’t read a patient’s file handing it out to any muppet who rings
the hospital asking for it.
Second, I’m a very private person and I have my reasons for
being so. I discuss my medical issues if I want to.
Third, for anyone else to do it without my consent is a
serious breach of my privacy and when done in an official capacity is fucking
illegal.
Anyways, with that out of the way, I was kept unconscious
for roughly twenty-four hours, which meant I was woken at around one in the
morning on Wednesday. This was annoying for several reasons mainly because they
only told me the time, not the day so I thought I’d only been knocked out for
half an hour or so, but also because the nurse/orderly who woke me up was some
Kiwi bloke with one of those names that should be illegal for anyone born in
Aotearoa (I think it was Brett, but shit gets a bit hazy around this point).
When I told Brett I needed to piss and attempted to sit up,
he informed me of the catheter and I must say, if you have never had one, it is
quite a unique experience.
You think you are emptying your bladder, but you’re not sure
because you don’t feel the urine rushing down your urethra, then some bloke who
can’t even pronounce his own name correctly, asks if you’re done, to which you
reply in the affirmative only to have the tube yanked from your special place and
you really need to piss. The last thing you want in this situation is to be
told is that that’s a normal sensation when you’re about to wet the bed because
you have no idea where the nearest toilet is. Not to mention that you’re naked
and can’t find your pants.
I managed to convince Brett I actually needed to urinate and
he managed to get me a receptacle so I could complete the act in the nick of
time. To do so required me to roll onto my back, which is when I realised that I’d
been lying on my left hand side for a hell of lot longer than half an hour. Another
fine example of not reading my file given the majority of my physical
impairments are on the left side of my body. As the blood began returning to my
numb limbs it was quickly followed by the pain. Not eating for four days and
another in a coma meant I hadn’t taken any Naproxen for that entire time which
resulted in my knee, wrist and shoulder screaming at me while I tried to enjoy
the much underrated sensation of a well-earned piss.
Having completed that task, I sat up to crack my back only
to notice the electrodes stuck to my chest from the ECG they must’ve given me
while I was knocked out. Summoning my inner Wolverine, I began removing them
only to be informed by Brett that the doctors might want to run another one. On
being informed of how little a shit I gave for that idea he lumbered off to
grab a bag for me to dispose of them in. With that out of the way I asked for
my clothes so I could get the fuck out of there, at which point Brett told me I
was scheduled in for an MRI and some other brain scan, whose acronym I can’t
remember, first thing in the morning.
I stopped removing the cannula in my right arm, figuring
they might need to inject that radioactive gunk for one of the scans and lay
back down so I could pretend to sleep for the next few hours. To be honest, I
was far too fucked to walk home at that point in time. Not just from the
seizure fatigue but from whatever they’d jacked me up on, so I waited around to
be prodded and probed once more which is when I became aware of the desk nurse distributing
the details of my condition to some random caller. I believe I asked a question
or possibly demanded that my private information not be disclosed to anyone but
The Old Man. Whatever it was, Brett came over to see what the fuss was about. I
told him to make her read my file. Whether he did or nor not is beyond my ken
as I drifted in and out of consciousness until Brett wheeled the gurney down
the hall and into a lift.
When we arrived at the specialist’s clinic, I had some gel
smeared all over my luscious locks before a bunch of electrodes were applied to
various points on my skull and a scan of sorts was completed with little fuss.
Brett then took me back to ICU where I discovered my urine soaked pants. Being
a person who doesn’t give a single fuck about what people think of them, I
donned the trousers and resumed my position on the gurney, only to be wheeled
off to a regular ward full of actually sick people.
I sat on my mattress, festering in my pissed soaked pants,
telling doctors that as soon as they’d done their tests, I’d be the fuck out of
there, then The Old Man walked into the ward. I asked him what the fuck he was
doing there. Apparently, when the hospital tells your emergency contact that
you’re in ICU it is normal for them to book a flight and accommodation for a
week so they can visit you. Now, I was
glad to see him because he hates hospitals probably more than I do and would
understand why I was checking myself out, but I think flying halfway across the
state was an unnecessary use of his finances. He handed me a bag of new
underwear while I informed him of the sodden trousers and that after the MRI, I
was going home so could he please head up to my place, grab me a fresh pair of
pants and to meet me once I was done with the scan. He took the keys after I
told him the screen door is a bit dodgy so he might have to jiggle the handle
to open it and left.
Soon after, an orderly came with a wheelchair, and I was off
to have my head stuck in a noisy tube. I’ve been asking to have an MRI for
years now, just for my knee not my head, so I asked if they could do both at
the same time. Unfortunately, I would need another referral to look at my leg,
which I see as a fine example of inefficiency, but didn’t have the energy to
argue my point, so l laid down and let the machine do its work.
Once that was done, I was wheeled back to the ward to find
The Old Man with some dry pants which I hastily put on before rummaging through
the two bags of “patient’s possessions” to find the scraps that remained of my
shirt and singlet. There wasn’t even enough material to have sown them back
together had I so desired. Finding the nearest doctor, I handed the remnants of
my garments to him. He responded as if a steaming pile of dogshit had been
placed in his hands by swiftly transferring the rags to a passing underling and
instructing them to dispose of said items. Then he was offended when I asked
him which genius decided that retaining these fragments of clothing was a good
idea (Doctors hate it when you refer to them as “geniuses” in a certain tone)
and mumbled some bullshit response which I ignored because a nurse had appeared
at my shoulder with a bag full of liquid he wanted to attach to the cannula
still sticking out of my arm. After telling him he would be doing no such
thing, I asked the doctor why he’d ordered the drip after I’d told him I would
be leaving after the MRI and he had nothing more in terms of a response than a
blank stare.
Unimpressed, I returned my attention to the nurse and
started to remove the cannula which almost gave the poor little bastard a heart
attack. He insisted I let him do it before scarpering off to get whatever he
thought he needed to complete the procedure. On his return he had two of those
little paper cups you only ever find in hospitals, one with three tablets in
it, the other contained water. For some reason, he handed me the cup of pills
and placed the cup of water on the bedside table which was to my right before
removing the cannula from my right arm. As a result, reaching for the water cup
was somewhat impaired, so I dry swallowed the medication and handed the cup to
him when he was done with my arm. He looked confused at the cup being empty,
but the water was untouched, so I drank it to satisfy him.
Thankfully, they hadn’t cut up my hoodie. I chucked that on
and gathered up my possessions before The Old Man told me there were some
T-shirts in the undies bag. After a quick costume change, I was ready to roll.
A cigarette.
With that task accomplished, The Old Man and I left the ward
and made our way out of the institution, towards my place. We were just past
the private girls’ school when The Maternal Unit rang him. On hearing the news,
she demanded to speak to me. I took the phone and was subjected to a barrage of
shrieking criticism of my decision and a demand that I return to hospital which
I took as an opportunity to re-spark my smoke in order to let her run out of
breath before beginning my rebuttal, which paraphrased, sans interruptions,
went something like this (there was far more swearing from both sides in
reality(and the statements may have differed in order), but you might be
reading this to your kids so I’ve sanitised it for you)).
Why the fuck would I go back to fucking hospital to sit
in a room full of fucking sick people? I’m immunocompromised remember? It’s why
my GP essentially told Scott to fuck off after people with disabilities were
removed from stream 1b and got me the jab anyway. The reason I was hospitalised
was because The Housemate rang the fucking Ambulance. Do you think this was my
first fucking seizure? Because it wasn’t. I won’t detail those because you
can’t keep shit private and before you start, how the fuck does half the
fucking world know I was in hospital? The Old Man certainly didn’t tell anyone
because he hasn’t been sucked into a social media wormhole like you have. I’m
fucking fine except for all the people from the internet who were given my
medical information without my consent because you posted something on a
piss-ant website. That you are silent means I’m right and don’t have to check.
We’re going to my place so I can put on some real clothes because those
dickheads cut my other ones off of me. Yes, they are dickheads because they
kept me alive. They’ve run their tests and they’ll send a letter to my GP. I’m
not sitting in a fucking hospital when I live fifteen minutes away from the
fucking place. Once I’m dressed, we’ll be going to get what I actually fucking
need – Some fucking FOOD.
Which brings me to the crux of the matter and I thank you
for persisting with this rant but there is a little bit more to go as I
promised to discuss the shortcomings of “social security” in Australia. What I
have described above is one example of my experience living on Centrelink
payments and it was entirely preventable.
You may have read this as a criticism of health workers. If
that is the case, you have misread. Start again. I’ll wait.
Done?
Good.
With the exception of that one Ambo and the numpties who
disclosed my personal information to anyone who asked for it, my treatment was
exemplary. The Nurses and Orderlies were fantastic as they always are, while
the Doctors were stock standard condescending pricks with a superiority
complex, but that’s to be expected because they are trained that way. Which is
all wonderful, but we’re getting off point.
The point is that I never should have been hospitalised in
the first place. Not because I seized up in front of The Housemate, although
that did contribute significantly, it has been established by both my GP and
the Neurologist that the seizure was caused by severe malnutrition and a lack
of sleep.
Insomnia and I are not strangers. I don’t know when it
started but I can’t recall a time I had more than three hours sleep in a single
session for at least two decades. Maybe it began when The Old Man was on day
shift while The Maternal Unit was somewhere further west trying get funding for
a Lacrosse set on behalf of a school that had seven students and he would wake
me at sparrow’s fart to put the guinea pigs out to pasture before getting my
sorry arse ready for school. It may have begun at boarding school, where I
would lie awake late into the night, staring out the dorm window, trying to get
the XXXX sign above the Milton Brewery to hypnotise me to sleep. One X, Two X,
Three X, Four X, blank, Four X, blank, and repeat. It didn’t work and I don’t
drink XXXX unless someone hands me one (I’m very polite if you aren’t a
dickhead) so it was a double fail on their part. But it could have been wanting
to be the first into the showers so I could have hot water and the stall
furthest away from the creepy “House Mother” who enjoyed ogling naked young
boys.
So, we’ve got the not sleeping partially out of the way
(there’s a shit load more that I will discuss elsewhere, but I have it on good
authority from multiple sources that if I do manage to slumber, I yell and
scream quite a lot), but let’s deal with the malnourishment bit.
As I mentioned earlier, I know how to cook and I’m not shit
at it, ask around if you don’t believe me. But here I sit, hungry,
contemplating heating up a frozen pie that I purchased as emergency rations.
Then I remember there are six days until my next payment, yet I only have four
pies and I did eat a sandwich last night so maybe, I should put it off for a
bit. Maybe until tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I wait for the Haematologist to call so she can
tell me how malnourished I am after receiving my latest blood test results. It
is a pointless exercise as I saw my GP the other day and he told me what I was
expecting to hear. I have severe vitamin deficiencies, barely any white blood
cells and fuck all platelets. I don’t believe that either of them seriously
think I have cancer but they want to tick all the boxes so I had a bone marrow
biopsy the other week, which was fun, but don’t worry, I spoke to someone who
had one about the procedure. She informed me that when the needle hits the
marrow the feeling is comparable to that one experiences when having a
contraction during labour and the lingering pain (for a couple of days) is
similar to a bad period. Never having had a child, or a uterus, these examples
weren’t particularly useful but my understanding is that both of those
experiences aren’t enjoyable so I took from it what I could. But in truth it
was quite simple and painless. I am feeling a bit tender still, from where they
drilled a hole in my hip, but all things considered it wasn’t too bad and as
usual the health care staff were exemplary.
Thanks to malnourishment, I agreed to have a surgical
procedure that was probably unnecessary but was paid for by the taxpayer
nonetheless and that is essentially the core issue.
I don’t know how much a bone marrow biopsy costs the
taxpayer, nor do I know how much the ER treatment cost, let alone the ICU but I
know it’s a shit load more than eighty bucks a day. I also don’t know who came
up with that arbitrary number as being enough to live on in Australia, but I
can tell you that in twenty-twenty when Newstart, or Jobseeker, or whatever the
fuck they’re calling it this week, was raised to roughly that amount my
standard of living improved significantly. Gone were the beans on toast (not
completely, I make a mean beans on toast, but it was no longer the only thing I
consumed), replaced by such glorious meals as roast chook with onion, yam,
carrot, garlic and yes, you can bet your Fedora that I made the gravy as well
(PRO TIP: cook your peas and corn in stock and use that liquid to make your
gravy. Saves cleaning another pot and you get the benefit of all the vitamins
lost from the peas and corn into the stock), but that wasn’t the only dish that
was returned to my intestinal tract. Stroganoff, Lasagne, Stews and even the
humble Spag Bog made the occasional appearance. Salads accompanied the meals
that were bereft of vegetables and all of a sudden, I felt better, physically
and mentally.
Since the rate has
been lowered to essentially pre-COVID levels, my health has deteriorated to the
point where I spend more time in doctor’s surgeries than with my friends. Not
that I have a shit tonne of friends, but my social life is not what I have
written this essay to complain about. What I take umbrage with is that I live in
one of the richest per capita countries in the world, yet I am in a financial position
that is widely recognised as being below the poverty line.
As someone who is fortunate enough to have been born in
Australia, which, once upon a time was regarded as an example to which other
democracies could aspire to but, – In this magical land, long since
forgotten, Universal Healthcare (Medicare) was established and protected, those
fleeing persecution and death were welcomed, not locked up and we had a Social
Security System (CES) which all began to disappear when little John Howard was
elected in ninety-six – I now find our current “Safety Net” has far too
many holes and not enough net.
For twenty-five years the standard of living of the least
fortunate in Australia has worsened. The cost of EVERYTHING has increased but
the level of Government support has not. Medicines that were once on the PBS
have been removed without justification (or notice) and the queues for the
charity vans handing out food and other supplies grow longer by the day, while
our elected officials approve pay increases for themselves at least once a year
before pleading poor by announcing they are unable to find enough money in the
budget to feed the actual poor.
This policy approach results in cases such as mine where
people who, if given the means to do so, can house, medicate and feed themselves
but end up in hospital because they can’t afford any or all of those things. If
one is housed they then must pay utility bills which have an uncanny ability to
show up whenever a prescription needs to be filled and there is nothing in the
fridge. This is where one must prioritise their expenses. First, always, is
rent, followed by the script(s), then comes pet food because they’ll probably
eat all you have before your next payment, after that you pay the bill (or some
of it – those pricks can wait a week or two for the balance) and then you look
at what remains before finding yourself digging around on the bottom shelves of
the supermarket trying to find the cheapest, least perishable foodstuffs available.
If I’m able to, on those rare fortnights when I don’t have a
bill or script that needs to be filled, I buy fresh produce, but I can’t buy
much at any one time as it will invariably go off before I get around to eating
it all. This means walking into the local greengrocer every day or two to buy a
single tomato, or two bananas, maybe a head of lettuce or a cucumber, depending
on what I have run out of and have enough of the others to fashion something
healthy and edible. Otherwise, I’m back to beans on toast (seriously, if you
want my beans on toast method, let me know). Not that I’m complaining about
daily visits to the greengrocers, they are a small local business who
appreciate how hard up I am and sometimes give me produce for free or at a
discount.
They should not feel the need to do this, but they are good
people, and this is the state of the country we live in. For your local
shopkeeper to wave away the shrapnel you have managed to accumulate for your
purchase because they can see it in your face that you need to eat something,
anything, and the vitamins will do you good is a humbling experience. It is
also a reminder that compassion and empathy have not been lost among ordinary
Australians – just by the Morrison Government.
Having been dragged kicking and screaming to increase
unemployment payments after he was told how many Coalition voters would end up
on The Dole for the first time in their families’ history. Scott then listened
to the Unions for once and introduced JobKeeper, which the Liberals modified in
order to give a shitload of money to Coalition donors who in turn made profits
from the pandemic and demanded that Scott open the country up for business.
Doing his owners’ bidding is nothing new to Scott, so the
pandemic supplement was stripped from Jobseeker but JobKeeper kept lining the
pockets of billionaires for another six odd months. Not only did that mean for
those of us who didn’t have a “job” pre-COVID went back to a starvation diet,
we also had to begin looking for jobs that don’t exist without the means to do
so. You may have noticed earlier where I mentioned priorities kicking in.
Clothing doesn’t even make that list, let alone – phone credit, public
transport expenses, internet, haircuts and washing the rags you already own.
Getting a job when you can barely afford to feed yourself is
incredibly difficult as you need to find somewhere to search and apply for employment.
If you are successful and they call you to arrange a interview but you miss the
call, there is no way for you to check your voicemail because you have no phone
credit. If by chance you manage to call them back because they weren’t ringing
from a private number, thereby allowing this to be a possibility, you find
yourself rifling through the clothes you have that might be suitable for an
interview to be left with a choice between worn out collar or missing button.
Job Network Agencies are supposed to furnish jobseekers with
interview appropriate clothing, but they don’t. In my experience, the Job
Ninjas’ (those who are supposed to work in the background to find you a
suitable job, but by the time they get around to it, you’re dead and don’t even
realise) will only give you a pittance to buy a shirt if you can prove you
actually have an interview. Which is about as useful as tits on a bull when
your interview is first thing the next day and the ninjas shut up shop in five
minutes, so you decide to go for missing button, rock up to the interview and
don’t get the job which results in you going home for some beans on toast
because you spent the last of your money on getting to the interview.
As time drags on and your period of unemployment lengthens,
any savings you may have had are gone so you start skipping meals, buying
cheaper processed foods, anything with a long shelf life because of the
priorities I listed earlier. The problem with this, is that by doing so your
health deteriorates to the point where you end up hospitalised and on a
shitload more medications than you need to be, purely because your diet has
devolved to a level that is but one rung above Crazy Cat Lady, which is where
you forego human food and just eat whatever crap you’ve bought for your animal
overlord (human grade tuna is cheaper than cat food if you ever find yourself
in this situation).
The compounding nature of the degradation that one is
subjected to when attempting to subsist on Centrelink payments is creating a
massive burden on an already overstretched health system. Had I been eating
nutritious food regularly, my doctors tell me the seizure wouldn’t have
happened. Just think of the money that was expended on my treatment and where
it could have been spent if I only had enough food. Were I to have been able to
provide my body with the nutrients it needs, me having a seizure was entirely
preventable and would have saved the taxpayer thousands of dollars that was wasted
on sustaining my existence. Which is another fine example of how The Coalition
are “better economic managers than Labor”. If these numpties, led by their
fearless leader Scott who likes hiding under doonas when he should be doing his
job, bothered to do the maths on paying those on Centrelink payments a rate
where we can cover our rent, bills, prescriptions, food and buy phone credit,
pay for public transport, get a new pair of work shoes, generally fucking live
like a human in a first world country as opposed to keeping us in abject
poverty so we end up being a burden on our health system.
I hate being a burden and I know I’m not alone. No one on
Jobseeker wants to be there but it is where we find ourselves. This is not
saying that those on Jobseeker are a burden, quite the opposite, if we were
given the means to feed and house ourselves without having to prioritise
medicine over food we would be able to reduce our reliance on said medicines,
but, also, with time work our way off Centrelink payments into suitable jobs
rather being forced to apply for jobs that we are either unqualified for, or
physically unable to perform the tasks required of us. I have lost count of the
number of times where a Job Network Agency has put me forward for positions
that require repetitive lifting of heavy objects. Often above my head. In some
perverse way, it’s fun going to those interviews and detailing my physical
impairments before pointing out my extensive management and administration
experience and suggesting I may be better suited for an office job. Maybe in
recruiting…
Needless to say, I am turfed out of those interviews quicker
than I can detail why I am more qualified than anyone in their office when it
comes to running one. But this is not
something I particularly care about as I already have a job. It pays fuck all,
if anything, but it has achieved more in human history than most other
occupations. I’m a writer and like every other artist COVID hit hard even
though I’ve barely been published or listed, the opportunities dried up. No longer
were writers in residence positions being offered. Even the awards that usually
occur every year disappeared for a while. I’ve never won an award or been
granted a residency but the lack of opportunity put me in a serious funk to the
point where I couldn’t even paint, which is usually my get out of depression
free card.
When the seizure hit I was struggling to start a fantasy
novel (never tried that before), had put my main work in progress on hold
because I have to get to Aotearoa because no one has bothered to digitise the
documents I need and the other thing about The Old Man’s lineage I was trying
to research got put on the backburner because the medication they’ve put me on
now (Levetiracetam) for the seizures, is an absolute prick of a drug when one
takes into consideration the fatigue, loss of appetite and motivation, which
are all things that contributed to the seizure in the first place. That I am
now on a medication that exacerbates the pre-existing conditions which caused
my hospitalisation is somewhat confusing and seems counterproductive, but I’m
not a doctor, so whatever, I’ll take the pills until the Neurologist tells me I
don’t have to anymore (should be February, but who the fuck knows? All my
appointments are being pushed back because NSW failed at containing the virus.
AGAIN).
I’m really sick of this shit and I’m not talking about the
pandemic, I’m talking about the endemic poverty forced on ordinary Australians by
an uncaring and callous governing class. This criticism runs both ways for
those of you who think this is just an LNP bashing exercise, you must remember
that while Gillard was busy knifing Rudd, who in turn knifed Gillard and then
we ended up with Tony “Cock Puppet” Abbott, nothing fucking happened to
Centrelink payments in a positive way for recipients of said payments. We ended
up with Robodebt and two thousand plus Australians dead by their own hand while
Turnbull tried to distance himself from the incredible wealth he has lying
around by giving his salary to charity, who as we all know, waste most of it on
“administration costs” rather than helping those who need it.
Now we have Scott, Jenny and “The Girls” praying and sending
their thoughts to us proles. Indigenous Australians, Women who were lucky to
not be shot for seeking an audience with the PM, hundreds of refugees locked up
in indefinite detention, two Australian born girls in the same situation, a
homelessness crisis of women aged over fifty-five, fuck it, a homelessness
crisis in general, kids going hungry, those in aged care dying off because
praying for Pfizer doesn’t fucking work, a deplorable ongoing cultural
acceptance of domestic violence, the destruction of Medicare, the NDIS and
every other socially beneficial policy that used to exist or had just been created
only to be torn down in two thousand and thirteen and continue to be demolished
to this very day.
What was once referred to as “The Lucky Country” (which was
a load of shit statement anyway) has been shown to be a cruel, callous place
governed by a cabal of privileged white men who care for nothing more than
retaining power. This is becoming more and more obvious, not only to
Australians but to the rest of the world. The incompetence of this Government
led by Scott, The Cultist in Chief has made us the laughing stock of the world
and we are broadly despised thanks to his actions (or inaction). From lying to
France about the submarines, then lying to the Yanks about lying to the French,
telling Scott’s “Pacific Family” that we actually give a shit about Climate
Change by rocking up to COP26 with a fucking pamphlet telling the rest of the
world that under his obvious attempt to turn this continent into a Pentecostal
Dictatorship he is happy about letting the world know that he gives less than a
flying fuck for anyone except himself which is probably why he decided it would
be a good idea to piss off our biggest trading partner to the point where China
won’t even answer phone calls from Australia.
If it has so far escaped you, we are being led into oblivion
by a bloke who is so inept that he needs an assistant to lead his dog to a local
café for a photo-op. He wants us to die. There, I said it. Scott Morrison wants
us to die because it’s all our fault. It’s our fault that we are poor and
starve ourselves to keep a roof over our heads. It’s our fault that we worked
hard enough to damage our bodies and minds only to end up on a Government
payment that can’t last the fortnight until the next one. The Bushfires are our
fault. The Cyclones are our fault. The Floods are our fault. Climate Change
isn’t a thing, but if it is, it’s our fault. Everything is our fucking fault
and he doesn’t give a shit because his cult tells him not to. If you’re
unfortunate enough to end up in a Federally run Aged Care facility it’s your
fault that you didn’t have enough money to retire on comfortably, Scott would
rather you’d just worked yourself into the grave because it’s all about the
economy.
Now I haven’t officially studied economics since High School,
so be prepared for a fucking masterclass – POOR PEOPLE SPEND THEIR MONEY. All
of the bullshit that was spouted about “dole bludgers” spending all of their deserved
support payments on “drugs, booze and gambling” was concurrently the best and
worst way to tell the electorate that you have no fucking idea how the poor
actually live. When the rate was temporarily raised we spent our money but not on
those things we were accused of spending it on. Debts were paid off (or at
least down), that vacuum cleaner you had for a decade and doesn’t really work very
well gets replaced. The cats get the deworming tablets they need and you can
still afford to buy dinner. When you go to the pharmacist you can get all of
your scripts filled instead of deciding to buy the expensive one or two of the
cheaper ones, the doctors tell you that you need them all but when you have no
money you have to make a choice.
When people are given the capability and capacity to provide
for themselves and their families they tend to do so. Of course, not everyone
was responsible with the extra cash, but that was to be expected and I am
confident those people were in the minority. For the rest of us, the majority, we
kept the economy chugging along. One thing that is often forgotten is that
thanks to Howard’s GST, the people who earn the least and/or subsist on
Centrelink payments pay a greater percentage of our income than even those who
earn a middling wage and have to pay income tax. The rich pay no tax and the
working class pay Politicians’ salaries only to be fucked over by our employees
at every opportunity they are given.
I’ve worked many jobs covering many industries and I’ve paid
my tax for the privilege of being employed as have my parents. As did my
grandparents (granted the Maternal ones were on the wrong side The Ditch).
Their parents did as well. For as long as both branches of my family have been
colonising these islands, the majority were generally law abiding (of
reasonable laws) and paid their taxes. I won’t say all because some have
committed crimes whose tax returns would have raised some eyebrows if they’d
declared their earnings from the bank robberies they committed. But that is an
aside, as Scott likes boasting about how he is descended from a thief, no one
should have a problem with me taking pride in the fact my French Great-Great
Grandfather blew up the ship he was engineer of in Newcastle Harbour because
his captain was a dickhead then kicked the shit out of four of New South Wales
finest (at least one was hospitalised) before being apprehended.
This little nugget of information gives me infinite pleasure
whenever I think of it and remember Scott’s father was a NSW copper. To imagine
my ancestor who was by my understanding, a hobbit (as most of my Maternal
relatives are) handing four Gendarmes their own arses on a platter makes me
smile. That my French ancestor beat the absolute crap out of people who were
cut from the same cloth as Scott’s father, who if we are to take anything from
Scott’s appearance, would resemble ogres. Think about that for a moment. A
bloke who was barely over five foot bashed four cops who existed in a time when
beating up suspects was standard practice. I have great respect for my
Great-Great Grandfather, although he did commit multiple crimes while
attempting to evade arrest for his initial crime, he served the time he was
sentenced to before buggering off to Aotearoa in order to breed and die.
I have decided not to breed so all that is left for me to do
is die. I’m not going to commit suicide and have expressed so previously but I
have what my psychologist refers to as an “apathy regarding life” and she’s
right. I don’t care if I die tomorrow (or today) but I do care that I’m not the
only person in this country who can’t afford to feed themselves and that might
be the cause of our deaths. What really pisses me off though, is that while
those receiving Centrelink payments are demonised as a burden on society until
they eventually become one and the health system struggles to cope. If The
Pandemic has taught us anything it’s that keeping people who shouldn’t be in
hospital, should be the fuck out of there.
That I managed to reach the level of malnutrition I have only
serves to demonstrate the dismissive attitude that successive Australian
Governments have regarding the most vulnerable members of our society. Not only
has COVID served to exacerbate the divide between the haves and the have nots.
It has highlighted the contempt that the Political class feel for us Proles. Yeah,
that’s right, Proles, we’ve taken it back and if the ruling class want to use
it as in insult, I suggest they think back to the last time they dropped the
N-Bomb on a Blackfella. Oh, that’s right, they’d never do it because they don’t
want to have seven shades of shit beaten out of them. One of my favourite
sports before COVID was going down to Musgrave Park to watch British and Irish
backpackers get bashed by the local Mob for being racist fuckheads. I know I’ve
gotten off point but pause for a moment and imagine a bunch of football
hooligans getting decked by blokes who actually know how to fight.
With that fun distraction out of the way we can return to
the point of this rambling screed which is if the poorest and most marginalised
are given enough money to live on, they become less poor and less marginalised.
When Jobseeker was raised in twenty-twenty my friends commented on how I’d
gained weight (a good thing), my complexion improved, and my eyes brightened. They
also mentioned my mental health wasn’t as bad as usual (my psychologist said
the same the other day), but I think it’s just easier to put the “everything’s
OK” face on when your stomach is full. Which is essentially the argument, sure,
my mental health did improve but mainly because I didn’t spend as many sleepless
nights wondering about where my next meal would come from, but I actually
managed to sleep more. That’s something that people who regularly eat well
don’t know, yet Doctors and Dieticians the world over will tell you that a
nutritious diet will help you get a good nights’ sleep. This is what Australia
needs. Full stomachs and a good night’s sleep. I know there are other pressing
issues that need to be addressed but I’m going to be selfish because this issue
doesn’t only affect me personally but affects the Continent generally which
means that my selfish desire be one of benefit to the entire population.
A healthy country is often a wealthy country but Australia
has managed to flip this concept on its head by being rich as fuck but happily
sitting back watching our most vulnerable die because some bloke who somehow
managed to win an election because, according to him, a fictional sky fairy
chose him for the job and his incredibly corrupted interpretation of a bunch of
fairy tales written by a bunch of black and brown blokes (whose stories were
then appropriated by white people who in turn used them to subject black and
brown people across the globe to their rule) pretends to run the country.
That our political system has fallen prey to Pentecostalism,
should be our call to arms. Not a call to violence. As a writer, I actually
believe in the power of the pen, our words will win this battle and it is a
battle that needs to be won.
We. The Working Class. The Unemployed. The Underemployed and
everyone else in between are the soldiers on the battleground where this war is
to be fought. Our greatest weapon is our vote. I know this spiel began detailing
my hospitalisation and the fact that it had been a result of malnutrion and
insomnia thanks in no small part to the dehumanising level of Centrelink payments
many in Australia are forced to subsist on and I have touched on some other
issues which I will probably delve into at some later point but this is all
about the strain placed on our public health care system by the Australian
Government by not feeding it citizens and residents.
The Commonwealth Government regularly deflects all
responsibility regarding the over stretched health system to the States and
Territories because, technically, it is their job. The Feds give some funding,
but the colonies are supposed to manage them, which is wherein the problem lies.
States and Territories do not control the amount of money of those receiving
Centrelink payments, The Federal Government does. I’m not a statistician, but I
would like to see the numbers of public hospital admissions and those who were
on a Centrelink payment (if anyone has these, please let me know. I’ll give you
full credit) because I’m going to take a guess that it’s pretty bloody high correlation
and (given I’m probably correct) that makes it a responsibility of The
Commonwealth to ensure that as many Australians as possible stay out of
hospital instead of being admitted for preventable conditions such as
malnourishment.
Scott likes to tell us that Centrelink payments are “A hand
up, not a hand out”. What he doesn’t realise is that most people on Centrelink
payments want a hand up, whereas the reality is a boot in your back, holding
you down, preventing you from grabbing said hand in order to improve your lot. On
those days when your depression is at its deepest, the only thing to eat in the
house is a half full bag of rice your friend dropped off the other day and you
feel like ending it all, remember that Scott wants you to. It was fitting that
The Dead Kennedys song “Kill The Poor” started playing as I wrote that previous
sentence. Should probably be Scott’s election jingle. Fuck, shouldn’t have said
that. Don’t want to give the fucker any ideas. Anyway, that is what he wants
but he is so fucking incompetent to understand that when the poor die, the
workforce dies. His strategy is to keep Centrelink payments so far under the
poverty line that people will be forced into jobs that they are physically or
mentally uncapable of performing before being injured, fired or forced to
resign due to the threat of the first two examples becoming reality. For this,
you will be punished. Your payment will be suspended. Conversations begin with
your landlord (if you have one) about delaying your rent. All bills are ignored,
and you can forget the fuck about buying food, so it’s back to the charity
lines.
For a wealthy nation like Australia to even require
charities is deplorable and only serves to demonstrate the abject failure that
is referred to as “Social Security” in this country. When the rate was raised,
I stopped lining up at the food vans, not only because I could afford to buy
food for myself, but because all of the international students who the
Government relies on to fund the Universities weren’t offered any support
whatsoever. Now they’re crying out for the students to return. Given how they
were treated last time I’d think twice about that fucking idea.
That a country which is a member of the OECD, G20 (and we
all remember that Scott got invited to the G7 so he could go to a few pubs and
visit the graves of his ancestors who didn’t arrive in Australia by boat) as
well as flaunting how generous we are to Scott's “Pacific Family” and our Asian
neighbours yet can’t even feed its own population is something worth
considering. This Continent has probably the largest and most diverse mineral
deposits anywhere in the world, exports roughly eighty percent of its agricultural
output but fails to put meals on the tables of the most vulnerable. While the
Government might argue that by raising the rate of Centrelink will cripple the economy
(which is a fucking joke, the economy is fucked already) what will save the
economy is to tax the rich.
Introducing Legislation to close the current loopholes that
allow companies to operate in Australia from a P.O Box in The Cayman Islands
would be a good start and there are many others but this rant has gone on for
far too long so I must bring it to a close. Thank you for sticking with me.
Australia tries to market itself as The Land of “The Fair
Go” but in truth we are The Land of “You can’t find employment? Fuck off and
starve”. I’ve detailed my health issues, not so much the mental stuff, but I
can assure you, living in poverty makes whatever fuckup exists in your head exacerbated
by your situation. Yes, I am applying for the DSP but that is a serious head
fuck in itself. I probably won’t be approved but I’m getting the paperwork together
anyway.
If the rate of Jobseeker was raised to the level it was when
COVID first hit Australia and “Mutual” Obligations were abolished a shitload of
Australians would be lifted out of poverty overnight, general anxiety levels
across the entire population would ease and the pressure on the health care
system would be reduced as those whose medical conditions could be prevented by
a safe home and decent meal everyday but it’s just too bloody hard. Kind of
like holding a hose if we want to make analogies.
But I speak of these things as they pertain to my lived
experience as a recipient of Centrelink payments, not as a certified expert in
any field except navigating bureaucratic nonsense. If you have bothered to read
this top to bottom, I ask only that you take what I have written and consider how
you want your taxes spent. It is a simple decision between pre-emptive and
reactive policy. Consider for a moment whether want your money spent on putting
a roof over someone’s head and a meal on their plate or filling up another hospital
bed in the middle of a pandemic.
This should not be a complex issue, but for some reason, it
has become one. Forty bucks extra a day as opposed to thousands spent on resuscitating,
sedating, twenty four hour care, a bunch of expensive tests and subsidised (if
you’re lucky) medications. I reckon the amount of taxpayers dollars spent on
what I deem avoidable medical expenses could have fed me for at least six
months, if not a year. Not that I’ve done the maths and nurses are paid sweet
fuck all for the work they do, but I can assure you that I am not alone in unnecessarily
burdening the health system purely because we are forced to sleep rough, or
skip meals, or ration our meds. It’s a complex issue and there is no silver
bullet to fix it, but in twenty-twenty, there was a brief respite that allowed
some homeless to put a roof over their head and for those of us fortunate to
already have one, put food on the table.
Australia has plenty of problems that I could and probably
will discuss at a later time, but you’ve read enough already so I’ll end by
saying that from my personal experience, an increase to all Centrelink
payments, will relieve the burden on the health care system nation-wide. This
should not just be a response to the pandemic but an ongoing commitment to the
people who are citizens or residents of these stolen lands to be provided with
the resources to house and feed themselves when they fall on hard times. To be
sick is bad, to be poor and sick is worse, to become sick when you are poor
because your Government wants it that way is downright evil.
In summation, I will end with a three word slogan, which
given his previous form, Scott loves. He doesn’t like this one though – RAISE
THE RATE.
Peace.
HH.
P.S. Don’t have cancer which is probably a good thing.
Also have to write an obituary now. You know, fun times.
