With funding from VicHealth, Victoria Walks commissioned Monash University Accident Research Centre to conduct a detailed study of falls while walking and the results are very worrying.

This ground breaking research found trips and falls in the street send over 5000 pedestrians to hospital in Victoria each year – even more than collisions with cars.

While people of all ages might fall in the street, the consequences of falling can be devastating for older people in particular.

Older people are more fragile so more likely to be seriously injured and they take longer to recover after being tripped on a footpath or kerb.

Falling and breaking a hip can be life changing and lead to premature death. International research shows that up to 40 percent of hip fracture patients die within a year of their injury.

The Victorian and federal governments need to start investing in making walking safer and supporting councils to improve footpath surfaces and road crossings.

There are great economic costs associated with falls and ill health and they cannot simply expect local councils to foot the bill.

We urge everyone to take notice of tripping hazards and poor footpaths, particularly where seniors walk, and report issues to their local council.

As the budget approaches apparently money is no longer the route of all evil, it is the solution to all the country’s woes and we need to spend more, so our politicians tell us, although they are unable to tell us where this money will come from.

They say that only by pouring more money into the education system can we overcome skill shortages the nation has, and raise academic standards.

The sad fact is we spend 60 per cent more on education now than we did 20 years ago but the standards have failed to improve and in many areas have slipped.

Despite that fact hitting us in the face, we are being urged to pour even more good money after bad when it is clear that money is not the cure-all as some politicians and self interest groups within the bureaucracy claim it is.  

We can also look at the health sector.

It just needs more money we are told, but the sector refuses to change outdated practices and political nepotism.

At the moment the increasing number of bureaucrats in our collective health departments has reached staggering figures to the extent that nationally we have one administrator for every 3.4 hospital beds.

These are not health professionals such as nurses; these are people who walk around the corridors of power each day with a bundle of papers in their hands trying to justify their jobs existence.

Can someone explain to me and the rest of the population how increasing the level of civil servants in the health system by 1.7 per cent per year will solve our health problems?

We have already seen the damage these bureaucrats can cause in South Australia, after denying health professionals a say in the design of their new hospital we have an amazing result.

This building that has been judged one of the four most expensive buildings on the planet, and yet its final cost is unknown. 

It will look aesthetically wonderful but because of design faults not be able to perform the task it was built for.

That was to be a world class hospital, this is a perfect example that pouring more good money after bad does nothing to solve the problems it merely allows bureaucrats to waste more of taxpayers’ hard-earned money encouraged by our politicians.