Media releases 2012

Rural Australia is short about 1000 GPs, and many towns are lacking doctors with the appropriate skills, training and qualifications to provide the level of care needed in rural areas.

“People in the bush shouldn’t be left asking “Is there a doctor in the house?” when they need medical care. They should be able to expect there to be appropriately qualified doctors available to them,” said Dr Paul Mara, President of the Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA).

RDAA will be making a presentation to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs’ Inquiry into the Factors Affecting the Supply of Health Services and Medical Professionals in Rural Areas tomorrow, and a key point it will be making is the failure of government policy to ensure quality medical care in the bush.

“The current policy of bringing in overseas trained doctors (OTDs) to overcome this acute shortage of GPs in the bush has failed miserably,” Dr Mara said.

“Despite being in place for 15 years, we are still seeing this shortfall of around 1000 GPs."

Rural doctors are urging the Federal Government to invest more in the rural health sector in tomorrow’s federal budget, saying it not only makes sense from a health perspective but also from an economic one.

In its pre-budget submission lodged earlier this year, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) called on the Government to implement measures to address the continuing shortage of rural health professionals and associated poorer health outcomes for rural and remote Australians.

THE answer to getting more doctors into rural areas starts with training country students in regionally based facilities, according to Rural Doctors Association of Queensland President, Dr Ewen McPhee.

Dr McPhee says RDAQ endorses the Australian Medical Association’s submission to the Senate inquiry into Australia’s Rural Health Workforce which points out the failures of traditional medical schools within Australian universities to address the doctor shortage plaguing rural and regional Australia.

“The AMA report confirms that old-fashioned courses have failed to attract and train a sufficient number of country students. There are just not enough country kids getting into medical schools” Dr McPhee said.

The Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) says while it welcomes the establishment of the Patient Controlled Electronic Health Records (PCEHR) system, it is likely to recommend that rural doctors charge patients their own non-rebatable fee to cover the costs of establishing and maintaining patients’ electronic health records in the system.

The PCEHR system will be implemented from 1 July this year, but it appears increasingly unlikely that the Federal Government will introduce a specific Medicare item to cover the additional time and costs involved for doctors and practices in inputting patient details into the new system.

RDAA has been warning the Federal Government for a number of years that, without such a rebate, many rural practices will find it difficult to meet the time, cost and technological challenges associated with implementing the PCEHR system.

The Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) has welcomed recognition by a federal inquiry that more needs to be done to better assist, support and supervise Overseas Trained Doctors (OTDs) seeking to register and work in Australia.

The report of the Inquiry into Registration Processes and Support for Overseas Trained Doctors—undertaken by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing—makes various recommendations to increase the transparency, fairness and accountability of registration processes for OTDs.

RDAA President, Dr Paul Mara, said recommendations in the report clearly showed that importing doctors from overseas and forcing them to work in the bush to solve Australia’s medical workforce shortage was not a short or even medium-term solution.

A long-awaited plan from the LNP to address Queensland’s ailing health system in the bush has met with cautious approval the Rural Doctors Association of Queensland.

RDAQ President, Dr Ewen McPhee, said comments made by Opposition Health spokesman Mark McArdle outside Beaudesert Hospital last week were reassuring and showed the LNP was prepared to acknowledge the depth of the state-wide problem.

Dr McPhee said the LNP should be supported in developing workable solutions that would help alleviate the strain on medical services in rural and remote communities.

Mr McArdle said he wanted to see a “rural generalist model” rolled out across Queensland, providing rural communities with doctors and nurses capable of delivering a broad range of vital services including maternity and obstetrics.

At a meeting in Canberra today, United General Practice Australia (UGPA) leaders unanimously expressed concern about the lack of preparation for the practical implementation at practice level of the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR), which is due to be introduced on 1 July this year.

UGPA members have been working tirelessly with the Government and agencies for some time to ensure the PCEHR becomes a reality.

The UGPA leaders agree that individual general practices and individual GPs must be properly funded and supported by the Government to assist in the smooth implementation of the PCEHR.

President of the Rural Doctors Association of Queensland, Dr Ewen McPhee, today called on all political parties to declare their positions on safe, sustainable maternity services in the lead-up to the State election.

“Maternity closures have gone too far and risks are increasing” Dr McPhee said.

“Queensland Health is allowing country Queensland families to face an increasing danger of giving birth in hospitals that are now less well-equipped, or where staff are not getting the ongoing training and support they need. Worse than that, anxious families will be having their babies in cars or ambulances alongside our country roads.”

A national survey has been launched today as part of an innovative project, Working Safe in Rural and Remote Australia.

The project aims to explore a community-based approach to reduce workplace violence and improve safety for rural and remote health professionals, teachers and police.

Instigated by the Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) in collaboration with the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine, the Australian Nursing Federation, the Queensland Teacher’s Union CRANAplus and the Police Federation of Australia, the project was developed following a national roundtable held in 2009 on workplace violence, which identified common risks faced by rural professionals in the health, education and policing sectors.

President of the Rural Doctors Association of Queensland, Dr Ewen McPhee, has called on the Bligh Government to step up to promised reforms of Queensland Health in preparation for the upcoming election.

Dr McPhee said that announcements by the Premier this week were a major disappointment and a wasted opportunity to deliver a better deal for rural health.

Dr McPhee said RDAQ had zero input into the preparation of the report that was delivered by KPMG’s Shane Solomon on January 16, recommending the old and broken Queensland Health should be split into two government entities – Health and Hospitals Qld and Health Corporate Services Authority.

Dr McPhee said the Solomon recommendations failed to address the issues critical to the health and wellbeing of all Queenslanders.

The Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) is urging the Government to reinstate incentives that have supported rural practices to provide after-hours care following the release of data that shows the GP Helpline is less cost-effective than providing face-to-face after-hours services at a rural hospital emergency department.

“The Minister for Health has recently announced that the GP Helpline has prevented 20,000 presentations to hospital emergency departments in the last six months,” said RDAA President, Dr Paul Mara. “By these figures, this works out to be 40,000 attendances a year avoided.

“With the GP Helpline costing $40 million per year, taxpayers are therefore paying $1,000 for each person a GP staffing the helpline tells not to attend a hospital emergency department."