Therese Rein has gallstones.

“Ms Rein has taken the advice of her doctors and will have these removed in a routine surgical procedure later this week at the Mater,” the spokesman said.

It’s here of course that Ms Rein, multimillionaire spouse of the Prime Minister, is fortunate: she can afford private health care and the post operative consolations of the Sisters of Mercy at Brisbane’s Mater Hospital. Her troublesome gallstones will be here today, gone early next week.

The reality is rather different in the public sector. This from one south Queensland GP this morning:

“I’ve got one case of gallstones who’s been waiting on surgery for three months. That’s par for the course. One of two things happen to these patients: they either sit on the waiting lists until their gall bladder rots … then they’re an emergency and they get treated right away. Otherwise they wait months till their number comes up.”

In Canberra the country’s health ministers sit with the federal Treasurer, pondering waiting lists and how much money it will take to cut them. In Brisbane, the wife of the Prime Minister sidesteps the process through a well-targeted injection of private funding. Timing.