SYDNEY — Barbara Wright, president of the NSW Medical Consumers Association and a retired nurse, is picketing Liverpool Hospital every weekday from 8.30 to 9.30am.
Wright is suffering serious spinal problems and needs urgent surgery. Her bowel, bladder and legs are partly paralysed. This paralysis is slowly increasing and will only be halted by surgery.
Her husband, Peter, died of cancer four years ago. Witnessing what she felt was a treatment travesty caused her to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder. She then sued the medical oncologist who treated her late husband. She did this to try to prevent other patients from experiencing the unnecessary suffering her husband did.
Her activism exposed the futility of most cytotoxic chemotherapy and she now believes the medical establishment wants to punish and make an example of her by denying her proper health care. Uncertainty about receiving adequate medical care in the future may scare people off from taking justified legal action.
"Most members of the medical profession are caring, hard-working individuals", Wright said. "Nevertheless, the collective medical establishment in Australia is a giant cartel. Politicians and bureaucrats seem impotent. They seem loath to rock the boat and change this power imbalance. Maybe it's time for people power."
Barbara Wright can be contacted on (02) 96082410 or 015 238215.