Australia's universal healthcare system was built on the promise that medical fate would not follow financial fortune — yet a study of more than 4,400 myeloma patients reveals that postcode still shapes prognosis. Across 44 sites and over a decade of diagnoses, patients from lower-income neighbourhoods were less likely to receive life-extending stem cell transplants and survived, on average, fourteen months less than their wealthier counterparts. The findings do not indict the principle of universal care so much as they illuminate how structural and social forces persist beneath the surface of
Wealth Gap Widens Myeloma Survival Odds Even in Universal Healthcare
Lower-SES myeloma patients experience significantly reduced survival outcomes, with approximately 14 months shorter median lifespan compared to higher-SES counterparts.