Words, Eliot Sampson 

With hindsight, the kid’s mother would have probably balked at my latest stab at investigative reporting. And, in all honesty, I hadn’t exactly planned the bloodbath. A more traditional approach, perhaps, would have been to organise a nice, quiet tour of Freo Hospital, accompanied by a big-smiled PR goon. But, hey, every cloud has a silver lining.

So, come the eldest birthday treat, there I am watching him and three of his nearly-teenage mates circling a go-kart track at what looks like breakneck speed. All’s going well and I’m revelling in an ‘I’m a good father really’ glow, looking forward to the post-race analysis and adoration of my first-born, when – bang – it’s all gone a bit Richard Hammond.

Giles, the polite, well-spoken deep-thinker of my son’s posse takes a corner a touch too enthusiastically and spins out. So far, so good. I see the smile on his face and know that all’s well. But this early insight into motoring dynamics ain’t gonna end well.

Behind Giles, a maverick racer from another party – bigger boys, more confident, more leaden-footed on the accelerator – flies round the corner that had just defied my son’s chum. The speed he’s going doesn’t leave much time to manoeuvre, so his take on dealing with the obstacle in front of him is to . . . go through it rather than round it.

Cue sudden action from the track staff, who pile into a golf cart and chug slowly but purposefully to the crash site. Bigger boy’s kart had not just hit Giles’ machine but driven over it and come out unscathed the other side. Giles, though, was a mess, blood pouring from his left hand, his right foot mangled.

OK. Drop the bravado. In truth, this was a parent’s worst nightmare. Fair enough, break your own offspring, but break someone else’s? That’s a definite no-no.

In the movie version of the incident, the director would now be ripping off Spielberg’s quick close-up of Chief Brody on the beach as the punctured lilo drifts to shore. It’s all gone tits up and the responsibility is lying squarely on my shoulders.

I’m struck by the reality that I now have to sort out this debacle. And I’m struck by the reality that I’m not in Britain anymore. And I’m struck by the reality that perhaps my research into this red-soiled land hasn’t been up to scratch. Yes, I know where to buy a nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, but I’m suddenly well aware that I’ve got little idea of how Australia’s medical services work.

As they stretcher off my bleeding, sobbing charge, I try to calmly ask about calling an ambulance. I’m asked if I have insurance. I look blankly at the track boss. As she patches Giles up as best she can, I’m advised the best thing to do is to drive him to the ED myself. ED? Yes, ED. Not A&E, not even ER. I’m struck by how little I know.

Well, to cut a long story short, I was thrown in at the deep end and came out the other floating on my back on an inflatable chair, sipping a strawberry daiquiri. It turns out that my initial fears that Australia, despite having McDonald’s, Audi dealerships and Gordon Ramsay on satellite, might have a third world hospital service were, happily, unfounded. Taking deep breaths, I drove quickly but calmly into Joondalup, reassuring the ashen-faced gang in the back seat and the bleeding casualty in the front that everything was going to be OK and thanked Kevin Rudd himself that there was a big blue sign on every corner directing me to the hospital.

As I closed in, I was hit by another fear that turned out to be unfounded. It was a Saturday morning, I was going to casualty. Nearly 40 years of cuts and spills in Britain convinced me I knew what was coming: a four-hour wait surrounded by angry drunks, screaming toddlers and whole families from the estate that seemingly had nowhere better to be on a weekend than watching Trisha at deafening volume on a battered TV in the corner of the waiting room. But, no. Rolling into the car park of Joondalup Hospital I knew straight off that things were going to be different here. For a start, there was a parking space. Quite a few, actually. And free parking for the first two hours. Australian health bods, it seems, don’t think that milking the walking wounded for every penny they’ve got is the way forward.

And then, I looked up at the building itself, glimmering in the sunshine. It was new, clean, graffiti-free and, strangely, inviting. Polite staff in the lobby pointed me in the right direction and then suddenly we were in the ED waiting room. Still clean. No pervading smell of human waste. Just half a dozen people, all with actual reasons to be there. A triage nurse booked us in efficiently, replacing the trackside bandages with more professional dressings while calmly extracting Giles’ details from the boy himself. Then, we were told to sit down and a doctor would see him in 10 minutes. And, get this, 10 minutes later a doctor appeared.

We were led through to the department proper and Giles was properly patched up by the kind of medic that you’d think was a bit too much of a character if he turned up on Casualty – all big laughs, well-used jokes and unshakeable authority. The boy’s mangled foot was x-rayed within half an hour, its lack of broken bones confirmed, stitches were put into both the wounds and we were discharged an hour and a bit later with a pack of painkillers and instructions for his mum. My offer of money, hand itching over my wallet due to the only fact I knew as far as Australian medicine went – ‘there’s no NHS in Oz’ – was politely turned down. The details extracted from Giles had proved enough to ensure that it was all covered. I drove home, then, agog at this nirvana of medical care that I’d witnessed, stunned at how much more pleasant the hospital experience was in WA than the UK. I got back in time for Fanta, sausage in a bun and a bit of a bollocking from Giles’ mum.

That, then, a fortnight or so off the boat, was my first experience of health care Oz-style. Happy ending notwithstanding, however, I realised we’d probably need to do a bit more research before any of my clan needed to enquire whether there was a doctor in the house.

Luckily, our next dalliances with doctors and nurses were considerably more low-key. My wife’s pregnant, perfectly timed to cash in on the $5,000 baby bonus, so we had good reason to investigate. And, yes, my only snippet of info about getting fixed up in Australia was correct – there really is no NHS in Oz.

Thing is, though, there nearly is. Although technically everything is private over here, Medicare makes sure that no one has to stand bleeding in the street for lack of the right change. Thing to do then, if you have the right kind of visa (a permanent one, basically), is to apply for your Medicare number as soon as you get here. You get issued with a nice green credit card-type thing and, then, when you need to see a quack of any kind you just present it and, lo and behold, most of your bill is paid for.

I say most because Medicare is, though wonderfully benevolent, still slightly sub-NHS – the state doesn’t want to pick up the whole bill. As such, based on your income, you’ll be asked to cover some of the costs.

This, in turn, leads to one of the more bizarre rituals of Australian healthcare, one that we first came across after having a scan done of my betrothed’s bump in a beautifully furnished medical centre in, once again, Joondalup. Having gone through the cold jelly and flickering sprog image routine, I was handed a bill on my way out. I settled it and then was directed to the Medicare office literally just around the corner and told that I could claim some of it back. This seemed strange, but clasping onto the whole ‘when in Rome’ mentality that’s de rigeur in an ex-pat’s early days on new soil, I dutifully trooped round, handed my bill through a window with my green Medicare card and was handed a wad of cash back: not the whole amount but a fair chunk of it.

Bizarre, as I said. I made the mistake of asking why I couldn’t have just paid a bit less in the first place only to be met with a blank stare from the lady behind the window.

“No,” she said, as though I was mentally subnormal. “You have to pay it and then claim it back here.”

I mumbled something about cutting out the middle man and she just smiled at me and pressed the ‘next customer please’ button. So I took my fistful of dollars and ambled off, still confused and still secretly amazed at the amount of red tape. But then, Australians do like their paperwork – it’s hard to get through a day without having to fill in a form for something or other – and, I suppose, the army of people handing back money that patients have just paid keeps the unemployment figures down. And boosts the economy. A cash refund’s easily spent, as I noticed as we drove home via the drive-in Thirsty Camel bottle shop.

“So,” I mused later that evening, sipping at my third glass, “there’s no NHS, but we don’t have to pay for everything. How does that work then?”

My wife looked back frostily over her grapefruit juice, the weight of tee-total pregnancy hanging heavy.

“If you just did a bit of research,” she snapped, “you’d know.”

I switched off as she explained – I’ve never been one for the science bit. But, what I caught was that apparently Aussie taxpayers fund Medicare with the Medicare Levy, 1.5 per cent of their taxable income going into the general pool. This, though is designed to help the less-affluent of citizens – and, despite first impressions, there are some in WA. As such, if you’re earning then you get stung for the Medicare Levy Surcharge. Stop talking at the back, this bit’s important. Basically, if, individually, you earn more than $50,000 a year, or $100,000 as a family, you pay an extra one per cent, which covers the fact that you’re a tight-fisted grasping ne’erdowell who doesn’t want to spring for private health insurance.

There’s a bit of consternation about this in the hallowed halls of Canberra right now as Rudd and his buddies want to raise the cut-off point for the levy, meaning you’d be spared it if you’re on less than $100,000 or $150,000 as a family. The Opposition – and the health insurance companies – don’t like this, because they reckon that everyone will cancel their policies and welsh off the state. Me, I’m not so sure, because I reckon Australian health insurance rocks.

Basically, it’s dirt cheap and the little you have to put in buys you out of the palaver and ensures you get the full monty of top notch care available down here. I’m not going into figures, but as an example, the total monthly insurance bill for the whole of my family comes to less than I pay to cover my Holden Commodore fully comp. And that policy’s a lot cheaper than you’d get from Direct Line back home, I can tell you.

So, if you move here, get the health insurance. As well as another credit card-type card – this one covering everything you need – you also get the benefit of feeling like a bit of a toff. Back home, every time I had to put my hand in my pocket for a kid’s filling or eye test, I’d rail at Tony Blair’s capitalist socialism and his quiet dismantling of everything the NHS stood for. And each time I’d pull up Bupa websites and curse at the fact that I couldn’t afford it. Here, I’m insuring my whole family for a year for the cost of three fillings, an eye patch and a spot of cosmetic whitening. Result.

And, like a family from Staines at an all-inclusive hotel resort in Antigua, we’re making sure that we get our money’s worth, milking dentists for everything they’ve got, happily watching our jagged British pegs turn into dazzling Aussie smiles. I’ve got a new pair of prescription sunnies and we have more complimentary DVDs of the next, unborn child swilling about inside my wife than we know what to do with.

In fact, the one thing we haven’t, thankfully, had to check out yet is the ambulance service. But that in itself is the main reason for getting health insurance. You see it’s not just the emergency phone number that’s different in WA. Here, frighteningly, the paramedics who mop up the hoons who lose it on Reid Highway aren’t Government employed. They are, wait for it, charity workers. Yep, in WA – and, if you’re interested, the Northern Territory – the heroes who come running when things are at their worst are St John Ambulance coves.

To Brits, that seems most strange. Our experience of the good folk of St John is more the portly volunteer at the village fete, the spinster handing out silver sheets at the end of a city fun run or the old boy watching the match from the sidelines at Kenilworth Road. Here, though, they are the crème de la crème, highly-trained, diligent, reliable and heroic.

And wonderfully belligerent.

Their position within what is essentially a not-for-profit charity means that they’re not brilliantly paid. As such, they’re working to rule in a bid for a 15 per cent rise that still wouldn’t give them what they’re truly worth. And they’re happy to be very vocal about their woes – best shown in their decision to wear T-shirts with the words ‘Low Paid Paramedic’ emblazoned on them instead of their standard-issue uniform and putting out radio ads that tell the listening world that their bosses are happy to pay ‘countless thousands’ on art for their swish new HQ but not to hand over correct amounts of a cash to the front-liners. You’ve gotta love that. More power to ’em, I say.

As an aside, if you’re moving to the rural bit of WA – of which there’s quite a lot – the Royal Flying Doctors, made famous by that soapy drama of our youth, are underfunded too. And if you get into trouble in the Bush, you’re gonna have to hope that someone’s sorted that out.

Still, despite low-paid life-savers, the health service in WA is, well, very healthy. Everywhere you go for a bit of fixing up is modern, clean and efficient – that’s the benefit of a new country, no rambling, dank Victorian monstrosities struggling to cope with the demands of 21st-century medicine. And it’s only going to get better: money’s being thrown at upgrades to hospitals across the state by both the major political parties.

All in all then, wave goodbye to the struggling NHS and look forward to bright, uncrowded, professional care in WA. If you’re lucky, you’ll never have to use it, but if you’re not you’ll probably come out the other end fit and healthy. Giles did.