When TV presenter and health communicator Casey Beros learned her Dad was terminally ill, she moved her family across the country to become his carer. Casey’s new book, Next of Kin: What to Expect When You’re Expecting to Care for Someone You Love (Wiley $34.95, 27 August 2025), shares her personal story and provides a heartfelt and practical guide to navigating the complicated world of care. In this edited extract from the book, Casey explores the multifaceted layers of Australia’s health system and how she became ‘Drill Sergeant Casey’ to navigate it.
Australia is widely known to have one of the best healthcare systems in the world. It’s by no means perfect, but show me a healthcare system—any system supporting a nation—that is.
Unlike the US, where you pay or you suffer (making insurance benefits the holy grail of employment), Australia’s healthcare system offers a two-pronged approach to medical care. Much like the UK’s NHS, we have a public scheme called Medicare available to all, and a private system available to those willing – or able – to pay for it.
An easy way to think about it is like when you travel with an airline. The public system could be thought of as economy and the private system is business class. It’s an imperfect analogy, because business class is considered better than economy, but the care you receive in the private system isn’t necessarily better than what you’d receive in the public system – you just have more choice, shorter wait times and possibly a nicer seat.
Our public scheme, Medicare, is paid for by the federal and state governments. If you’re an Australian citizen, permanent resident or applicable visa-holder, you can access free healthcare at bulk-billed medical clinics and public hospitals. The upside is that it doesn’t cost anything; the downside is that unless it’s an emergency, you’re likely to have to wait for care (sometimes years) and you’ll have little to no say in who delivers it.
Our private system is paid for by industry (insurers) and individuals – people who choose to either pay for care directly to the providers, or to health insurers in return for coverage, and then any gap between what insurers will pay and what medical professionals choose to charge. The government pays too, by covering some of the costs of care, providing a private health insurance rebate to policy holders, as well as paying for public hospitals in which private patients can still receive care. The upside of the private system is that you have more control over who treats you, and in theory you shouldn’t have to wait as long for care. The downside is that you’ll pay fairly handsomely for the care you receive — whether that’s paying for insurance or the price of treatment (or, more likely, both).
There are adjacent systems, services and schemes you may have to work with on the journey too, such as welfare (Centrelink), aged care (My Aged Care) and disability (the National Disability Insurance Scheme). These work alongside our healthcare system to deliver care.
The System’s Subsystems
Within the healthcare system, there are various subsystems:
● Primary care: This is usually what we call general practice – your first port of call when you’re not well and the subsystem you’ll likely interact with most.
● Secondary care: The specialists we are referred to when primary care isn’t enough – think cardiologists for our hearts, psychiatrists for our minds and orthopaedic surgeons for our bones.
● Tertiary care: The hospitals we go to when we need surgical or medical intervention (and little cups of jelly that make no sense nutritionally nor to anyone post-1994).
● Allied health: All the healthcare professionals who work alongside and support doctors and patients. Think physiotherapists, psychologists and pharmacists, for starters.
The subsystems are designed to fit together like LEGO – but you are the one playing with the colourful plastic blocks. It’s up to you to come up with a design based on what game you’re playing and make the pieces fit together.
And if you’ve ever stood on a piece of LEGO in bare feet (hello, parents), you’ll know that a rogue piece – while tiny – can cause all sorts of pain, drama and hopping around on the other foot while internally screaming obscenities at whatever tiny terrorist left it there.
Your Next of Kin Era
So, what happens when someone you love is struck down with disease, disability or death, and you need to step up to the plate and play? You enter your Next of Kin era.
Next of Kin are defined as a person’s closest living relative or relatives. Whether by birth or by choice, Next of Kin have the opportunity to be much more than an emergency contact we write on a form. In fact, I believe Next of Kin are one of the most powerful stakeholders in the healthcare setting. Next of Kin have a PhD in the patient, we are trusted by them, and we are one step removed from their experience. It’s not happening to us, but in front of us.
In the throes of illness, disability or mortality – whatever the patient is facing – their focus should be on the challenge in front of them. For that very reason and myriad others, it’s hard for patients to be their own advocates. In the same way lawyers handle
divorces and real-estate agents sell houses, sometimes we need an intermediary to think strategically on our behalf. And care is no exception.
My nickname in our family while caring for Dad was Drill Sergeant Casey. While my ego bristled when I learned of my new moniker (because we all like being liked), in the end I responded with: ‘Damn straight, and it’s Captain Drill Sergeant Casey to you.’
Unfortunately, someone has to be in charge when someone else’s health, happiness and, in some circumstances, life, is on the line. In an ideal world, some helpful fairy godmother would assemble a team around you, brief you (like in the movies) and then give you some kind of lanyard, whistle or at least an official-looking hat. But in this world, the real world, you’re going to have to assemble that team – and run it – yourself.
