Recognition
AS a first year medical student at the Australian National University, I was fascinated to learn recently of the late Dr John Cade, a world-renowned psychiatrist and researcher born in Murtoa in 1912.
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After spending much of his childhood around psychiatric patients who were under the care of his father, Dr David Cade, and observing incredible mental suffering as prisoner of war in Changi during World War Two, Dr Cade became interested in manic depression (what we now call bipolar disorder). In a disused kitchen of the Bundoora Repatriation Mental Hospital, at which he subsequently worked, Dr Cade developed the world’s first cheap, readily-available medication for any psychiatric disorder in 1948. That treatment – lithium – is estimated to have resulted in savings to healthcare systems globally of $17.5-billion to date.
In time, he received numerous accolades for this discovery and, since his death in 1980, has been memorialised by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, the University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
Given this remarkable legacy, I was surprised that I knew nothing of Dr Cade and I wondered what proportion of young people in Murtoa were also unaware of his achievements? I suspect the answer would be a majority. Perhaps this should not be surprising though, given the lack of recognition of Dr Cade in his hometown.
In 2013, Yarriambiack Shire Council apparently did not find these achievements sufficiently noteworthy to even rename an unnamed lane in Murtoa in his honour.
One wonders what more one has to do for an eponymous lane way?
But such recognition is about more than street signs and inclusion on Google Maps.
I know from my own experience growing up in a regional area that it can be incredibly difficult to see the big picture and envision yourself in a position to make a contribution to the world beyond your small town.
To know that someone who had such an impact as Dr Cade was born and lived in your town would be (I believe) a powerful inspiration to aspiring young men and women in Murtoa.
Dr Cade should be held up as an example to the brightest young minds in the area to encourage them to achieve their full potential. A named award to the top year 12 student each year at Murtoa College would be both fitting recognition of Dr Cade’s legacy and strong motivation for students with the capacity to follow in Dr Cade’s footsteps from Murtoa.
JONATHAN McGUANE
Australian Capital Territory
Rules outdated
THE outrage against a government that reduces already inadequate funding for their pet project goes on apace.
The most recent contributor is Jenny Matic of Leading Age Services Australia (Mail-Times, June 24). I have no doubt more money for aged care is needed as more people enter the twilight of their lives after 15 or 20 years of retirement. Sure, care of the aged is important, as is education of the young, public transport, roads, and a list of items too numerous to mention. Why are we so reliant on funding from Canberra? How did we arrive at this impasse?
The simple fact is that the economic rules as espoused by John Maynard Keynes, the widely acknowledged father of modern economics, are outdated, worn out and kaput.
Keynes’ contribution was little more than a run down of the way things had worked since coins replaced live cattle as the medium of exchange in the time of the Roman Empire some 2000 years ago.
The Industrial Revolution threw a spanner in the works by unwittingly setting up the gap between total retail prices and the personal incomes to pay them.
Simply, the gap is caused by the cost of purchasing and installing the machines.
This is a cost to business that must be loaded into prices with no counterbalancing increase in the cash available to the populace to pay the increased prices.
I do not advocate destroying the machines as the Luddites did in 1812, but the economic rules must be thoroughly overhauled to accommodate the increment the machines offer us. Keynes encapsulated the Marxian notion of debauching the currency by advocating controlled inflation, but without conceding it would camouflage the gap.
The combination of the gap and inflation meant that people in general became less and less able to make ends meet.
Governments began gradually to introduce measures to counteract the effects of this combination. How did they pay for it? Through taxation, which further reduced the ability of people to pay their own way.
So the claim that we have been living beyond our means applies only so long as we adhere to the broken Keynesian dogma.
Until that dogma is repudiated and a system that will return our ability to pay our own way is introduced, we can continue to bash our proverbial heads.
RON FISCHER
Horsham
Regional awards
THE 2016 Victorian Regional Achievement and Community Awards are now open. Nominations are being sought in the following categories:
Leadership and Innovation Award, Excellence in Aged Care Award, Environmental Sustainability Award, Regional Achiever Award, Community Service in Aged Care Award, South West Regional Achiever Award, Customer Service Award, Senior Achievement Award, Business Achievement Award, Community Group of the Year Award.
Nominations close on Wednesday, July 20. People can head online to www.awardsaustralia.com. Finalists will be presented and winners announced at an awards gala presentation dinner on Friday, October 14.