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MEDIA RELEASE |
Report Highlights Need for
Rural Health Focus
A draft
report on health workforce issues released by the Productivity Commission has
highlighted the need for additional measures to increase the number of doctors
and other healthcare professionals in rural Australia, a recommendation
welcomed by the Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA).
RDAA has also welcomed the Commission’s recommendation
that governments should be required to be explicit about the minimum levels of
healthcare access and service quality that must be met in rural and remote
areas, and to provide funding commensurate with those levels.
“One of the key planks of RDAA’s submission to the Commission’s
health workforce study was that there must be equitable healthcare funding for
all Australians, regardless of where they live” said RDAA President, Dr Sue
Page.
“The current multi-government system of healthcare
funding delivers a far from reasonable use of rural taxpayer dollars, and it
does not even return to rural people health funding proportionate to the taxes
they pay. For example, it has been estimated that for 1999-2000, over $220
million of the Medicare levy collected in non-urban areas flowed back to
subsidise metropolitan services.
“RDAA’s submission to the Commission also emphasised
that
“The Commission has recognised that an important
factor in getting and keeping more doctors and other healthcare professionals in
rural areas is improving remuneration and working conditions. RDAA has argued that
there is clearly a need for specific Medicare loadings that recognise the greater
complexity of providing medical services in rural areas and the substantial
after-hours duties of many rural doctors. There is also an urgent need for the
roll-out of more after-hours and locum support assistance for these doctors.
“The Commission has also emphasised the need to boost the
number of education and training places available for medical and other
healthcare disciplines. More of these positions must be quarantined for rural
origin students as they are twice as likely to return to the bush to work. It
is also critical that more places are quarantined for Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander students, and that they are adequately
supported in undertaking their studies.
“It is also important that professional groups
continue to play their role in ensuring that training is adequate in delivering
the high quality and safety of healthcare services.
“RDAA agrees that a multidisciplinary team approach to
healthcare—which utilises the complementary skills of doctors, nurses and other
healthcare professionals—is essential, particularly in rural and remote areas
given health workforce shortages.
“The Commission’s recommendation to support integrated
team models by utilising new MBS items on delegation by the patient’s regular
doctor has already proved beneficial through the GP-led practice nurse model,
and RDAA has advocated an expansion of this approach for some time. However, we
emphasise that all Australians—regardless of where they live—deserve to have
access to a doctor, and we do not support models of role substitution that
promote fragmentation rather than integration.
“The rural health workforce programs in existence have
already been evaluated and found to be effective—the key requirement now in
bolstering the rural health workforce is to introduce more initiatives, not
less.
“RDAA looks forward to providing further comments to
the Productivity Commission on its draft report, once we have considered its
recommendations in more detail.”
Media contact: Patrick Daley, RDAA Media Advisor,
on tel: (02) 6273 9303 bh or 0408 004 890.