SUBMISSION - Audrey Robb - Department of Health and Ageing

SUBMISSION
to
NATIONAL HEALTH AND HOSPITALS REFORM COMMISSION
From: P. A. Robb (Miss)
Tel.: (07) 4122-1370
e-Mail: audreyp_robb@hotmail.com
28 th May, 2008
The Reform of Health, Hospitals, and Dental services in Australia is urgently needed. As
I am sure you will receive many sophisticated submissions from organisations and others,
I intend to concentrate my Submission on the dreadful neglect of one area of health.
This problem is noise, and is costing the Australian Health system billions (probably
hundreds of billions) of dollars every year.
There is irrefutable evidence that noise is a deadly toxin. I refer you to the following
websites:
http://shatteredpeace.com/adverse_health_effects_noise.htm
World Health Organisation – “Adverse Health Effects of Noise”
*******
http://medscape.com/viewarticle/554566
Medscape Report : "Noise Pollution: A Modern Plague”
**********
http://www.nonoise.org/library/epahlth/epahlth.htm
E.P.A. USA Report on Noise - A Health Problem
*********
http://enhealth.nphp.gov.au/council/pubs/pubs.htm
Australian Government Report – “The health effects of environmental
noise - other than hearing loss” - 2004
(1) Go to enHealth Publications
(2) Scroll down to Human Environment Interface
(3) Scroll down to General Series - 4th item (70 pages)
Noise can cause many health problems, most of which are brought on by stress. The link
between stress and health breakdown has been proven by the Garvan Institute in Sydney.
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(1) Probably the most obvious health problem caused by noise is hearing loss. This
has to do with loudness. I understand this costs in the region of $12 billion per
year, plus another $11 billion due to loss of wellbeing (Access Economics 2006).
If this money ($23 billion) could be put into other Health areas, I’m sure it would
fix our broken-down Health system in no time.
(2) Apart from loudness from noise, enormous stress is inflicted on people
everywhere because of continual/continuous noise such as vibration or “bass
level” (low frequency) noise which cannot be captured by conventional decibel
measurements. Given the mountains of complaints received by Councils, Police,
the E.P.A. etc. all over Australia, these injuries would leave hearing loss costs for
dead.
It is obvious that people whose lives are in tatters from constant noise, which disturbs
their everyday activities and causes sleep loss, must also be subject to fatigue and
anxiety/stress resulting in injuries at home, at work, and on the road. Yet I know of no
statistics of road accidents due to fatigue resulting from noise.
I wonder how members of this Commission would feel if, being wheeled into surgery,
they knew that their surgeon, tired and angry, had been kept awake all night because of
loud music/barking dogs or whatever?
The problem is that Councils and other authorities are unable/unwilling to bring the
offending noisemakers to account. I refer here mainly to neighbourhood noise inflicted
by neighbours, but there are other sources, such as traffic, airplanes, pubs and clubs, and
so on.
Probably the most complained-about noise in suburbia is barking dogs. Yet almost all
Councils in Australia blatantly refuse to address this issue. The offending dog owners are
aided, abetted and protected while victims are treated like deranged criminals. Council
Bylaws, even if adequate, are not enforced but, unfortunately, most Council Bylaws are
written with the intention of making them unenforceable.
Councils require dogs to be registered, but just anyone at all, no matter how cruel, insane,
demented, sadistic, idiotic, ignorant or criminal, can keep a dog. They receive no
education on the proper care and maintenance of an animal and are seldom given a copy
of City Bylaws.
All this bullying by a malevolent, anti-social section of the community is ignored and
even encouraged by authorities, leading to neighbourhood warfare, injury, suicide and
homicide, to say nothing of health collapse, marriage break-ups, people moving house in
a desperate attempt to get some peace, dog poisonings and killings, overflowing animal
refuges, animal euthanasia working at full steam, the burgeoning puppy mill industry, etc.
(The A.B.C. Four Corners ran a program on dog fighting on Monday, 26 th May. Yet
when I and another person in Melbourne asked them to do a program on dog barking and
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other dog problems a couple of years ago, I received a negative response pretty much
ridiculing me for even suggesting such a thing!!)
Dog barking is a huge problem and will only get worse. By allowing it to continue
unabated, people now realise that the society-sanctioned weapon they can use with
impunity to injure, threaten, intimidate and kill others is a dog. The most vulnerable are
foetuses, infants, young children, the elderly, sick people, the blind and the hearing
impaired. All these are under-reported in study populations.
This sends out a message that all laws can be broken without penalty. Small wonder we
now have crime escalating everywhere, and authorities wonder why!!
The following websites give comprehensive analyses of dog problems everywhere, even
in the U.S.A., where the problem is much the same as in Australia:
www.barkingdogs.net
www.dogassault.com
http://geocities.com/vodaan/contact.html
I can only assume the powerful pet industry lobby is behind this gross injustice and
Human Rights violation. The two big boys are pet food producers, Mars and Nestle (the
chocolate firms), who now intend opening the huge markets of China and India.
I set out below my own horrific experience over a 9-year period of being exposed to
neighbourhood barking dogs:
I am an elderly pensioner (73) who lives alone on one corner of a T-
junction. The two young working dogs confined to the small back yard
on the opposite corner, never trained, never walked, never exercised
and left alone all day while their owners went out to work, made it
impossible for me to use my own house or yard. Besides having to
endure almost non-stop barking at passers-by, I had to suffer sharp,
sudden and loud barking whenever I went in and out by my big gate
(the only way I could take my car out). Any tradespeople in sight of the
dogs (in my yard, or on the roof) were barked at the entire time. I had
to hang out my washing at night and, if I had to use my yard, found
myself tip-toeing around in a futile attempt to not “rile” the dogs.
I complained literally hundreds of times to the local Council, who
blatantly refused to attend to the problem. But this is par for the
course for almost all Councils across Australia. The Council’s Animal
Control Officer informed me that : “Yes, the dogs do bark, but that’s
what dogs are supposed to do!”
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Other neighbours were either not affected or had other reasons for not
supporting my complaint. The building next to the dog owners is a Girl
Guides Hall, and the old lady living behind them used to go out in the
Respite bus every single day to escape the racket. She was too afraid
to support my complaint. Now the dogs are quieter, she stays at home
much more often.
It is usual for victims who complain about barking dogs to be
confronted with an adversarial attitude by many Councils, from the
Animal Control Officer/Ranger right up to the C.E.O. and Mayor.
I also spoke and wrote to the offending neighbours but was met with a
volley of abuse and nasty reprisals, as well as visits from the Police
who cautioned me not to harass or stalk the owners; i.e. via phone
calls or visiting their front door requesting them to quiet their dogs.
This happened several times, even though it is a Council requirement
to first speak to the dog owners (a move fraught with danger given the
belligerence of the majority of owners of barking dogs – it is a selfselecting
characteristic of these types : the reason for keeping a
barking dog is to torment others!). Eventually, the Police
Superintendent in Maryborough admitted I was not committing any
offence!!
This dog barking abuse continued for more than four years during
which time I had contacted the Council (including the C.E.O., the Mayor
and all Councillors), the Police, the Queensland Ombudsman, all State
members and State Ministers (including the Queensland Attorney-
General), the E.P.A., many solicitors and the R.S.P.C.A. (who are
clueless about dog barking).
Mediation was useless (one mediator told me to wear ear plugs),
because these types of agreements are not enforceable. In my case,
the dog owners violated the Agreement within two days, by holding a
neighbourhood meeting at their house organised by the local
newspaper to vilify me for complaining. I was labelled the “neighbour
from hell”.
I had written numerous letters to the local newspaper – some
published, some not. Yet after one call from these newly-arrived
neighbours, the Editor wrote an editorial claiming that people “could
live with noise if they tried” (see Australian Press Council Adjudication
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#1230 – 2004, which upheld my complaint against the Fraser Coast
Chronicle). By the way, the Editor and the Council ranger are close
relatives and associates!!
The Chairman of a local Health Group who is also a Councillor claimed
he did not want the Bylaws enforced because “all dogs barked and he
did not wish to disadvantage the (irresponsible) dog owners!” I also
made submissions when called for to the E.P.A. Department and other
Government Departments – all to no avail. I did complain to the
Maryborough Police that I was being stalked on my own property by
the dog owners using their dogs as a weapon, but was told that
“stalking by a dog is unknown.”
The Queensland Ombudsman issued a scathing Report on Maryborough
City Council’s Animal Control Unit in 2003, as they had done on Hervey
Bay City Council’s Animal Control Unit in 2001. They made 19
recommendations, none of which have ever been implemented. My
complaint (as spokesperson for the Barking Dog Action Group of
Maryborough) had been on behalf not only of myself, but of many other
sufferers in Maryborough. The Ombudsman’s Office finally ran away in
horror from the problem saying they could not force Council to enforce
City Laws!
Is it any wonder that owners of barking dogs consider Councils a joke?!
In Maryborough, Queensland, they are never fined or penalised in any
way, despite Council recording over 1,000 complaints last year.
Without going into a long, long story, eventually my immune system
broke down from the never-ending stress and I developed a very
aggressive breast cancer, resulting in a mastectomy and the removal
of cancerous lymph glands. I am still receiving chemotherapy (one
drug alone, Herceptin, will cost the Federal Health system $70,000!) I
estimate that, so far, this breast problem of mine has cost the Health
system in excess of $200,000. The attitude everywhere seems to be
that this is O.K., so long as the irresponsible and notoriously
malevolent and belligerent dog owners are not inconvenienced in any
way.
Luckily (for the time being), the dogs have now been quietened, and my
blood pressure has normalised. But I will never be able to reverse the
dreadful injury which has already been done. I am left for life
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hypervigilent and sensitised to noise, particularly dog barking. It has
occurred to me more than once that rather than be subjected
constantly to this torture, it would be kinder to be euthanized, and this
would certainly save some money for the Health system. I now find
that barking and loud bass music causes me immediate tension and
stress, which is much worse than worry about my life-threatening
cancer.
(3) The Delta Society of Australia claims there are 100,000 dog attacks on humans
per year in Australia. Surely this is also a health issue? Most of the victims are
small children who often suffer horrific facial and other injuries; some are killed.
This disgraceful situation is more or less regarded as an act of God, i.e.
unavoidable. These attacks are far more frequent than drowning accidents, but
don’t receive the same degree of publicity. Yet nothing much happens to the dog
owner even in the case of death or very serious injury. The dog may be destroyed
and a few owners are fined $300 or so. Many, many more pets, livestock and
wildlife are also attacked and killed by dogs. In all cases, the only recourse is
costly civil action, and then the magistrate invariably sympathises with the dog
owner.
(4) Dog excrement is also a health issue. It is everywhere – on footpaths, parks,
beaches and piling up in suburban backyards. One cannot sit in a public park on
the Fraser Coast without being forced to eyeball a pile of dog excrement nearby.
And children playing in sand on the beach often end up with more than a handful
of sand. Councils make little effort to halt this littering.
I know of one house in Maryborough where the two dogs are kept almost all the time on
the back verandah of the high-set home. There the dogs urinate and defecate. It piles up
and smells. A next-door neighbour complains to Council; Council speaks to the owner
and the owner hoses off the mess. This happens about once a week, and continues week
after week. A complaint to the R.S.P.C.A. saw that animal welfare agency simply pass
the buck back to Council.
I believe we could soon see outbreaks of cholera or similar diseases because of dirty
people who think/know they are above the law.
++++++++
Note: (1) Submission sent by e-mail, with no enclosures (I am not computer literate).
(2) Same Submission sent by Express Mail with enclosures (11 enclosures) over
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Enclosures:
1. Adverse Health Effects of Noise – World Health Organization (W.H.O.)
2. Noise Pollution : A Modern Plague – Medscape Report
3. Noise : A Health Problem – United States Environmental Protection Agency
4. The Mercury Magazine – April 14, 2007. Stress and the Cancer Connection
5. Garvan Institute, Sydney – Researchers prove stress linked to sickness.
6. Week-end Australian – September 1-2, 2007. Life’s feverish pitch is killing us.
7. Letters from Dr. Louis Hagler – June 10, 2006, and Dr. Sondergeld – May 23,
2001.
8. The Sunday Mail – June 30, 2002 – Catalogue of Terror
9. Herald Sun – February 20, 2008 – Growing Fear of Dog Bite
10. The Daily Telegraph – April 4, 2008. Barking Mad.
11. Sunday Mail – June 18, 2006. Bad Neighbours can drive us out.
If you need more back-up material, I can send it on to you.
!
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