Changing the Health System or Challenging the Change: a time to reflect and contribute

Abstract

It is both a privilege and challenge to accept the role of Editor of a Journal that is new and in its development stage. The Journal has had a good start thanks to the efforts of Mary Harris and dedicated contributions from the College corporately, Editorial board and committee members and willing peer reviewers. Most importantly, good quality contributions from researchers and health professionals in the Asia Pacific Region underpin the early success of the Journal. One aspect of the Editorial role is to promote involvement of readers, partly by providing commentary, to encourage readers' responses to articles through a Letter to the Editor section. From the initial issue, readers have been challenged by a series of articles on health system reform by Podger and ripostes by Braithwaite and Stable. Despite the contemporary nature of the reform issue and the constant call for reform in the Australian context by some commentators, there has been no response to these articles from the Journal's readership. In the absence of evidence, one can only make assumptions about this lack of response. These assumptions might include the newness of the Journal and a lack of electronic format being a limiting factor, employment circumstances containing public comment from readers and possibly fatigue from four decades of health system reform. After all, the Australian health care system and most comparative national health systems have seen consistent reform from the 1970s onwards.