DOCTORS REFORM SOCIETY

DRS

Media Release

 

17 May 2007

Australian doctor crisis deepens –
No doctors for many areas,
“Rapid revolving door” for the rest

 

 According to information released today, two thirds of Australia is not adequately serviced by GP’s.
 
More than 65 per cent of Australia has been designated as "areas of workforce shortage", meaning the number of GPs is below the accepted figure of one-to-1400 people.

More than half the country has been in that state for more than a year.

Much of Australia is fast becoming a no go zone for doctors (and nurses and dentists) which means many Australians are going without proper health care or receiving “quick care” rather than “best care” or even “basic care”, said Dr Con Costa from Doctors Reform Society

“The shortage is most felt in rural areas with the crisis now being made worse by many doctors moving to the cities or Canberra for their children’s education.
Poaching of doctors is now rife as the cities try to lure country doctors to fill the shortage in the cities and this is on top of Australia now poaching doctors from all over the world including needy third world countries.”

“Much of the rural doctor network is now dependant on overseas trained doctors (OTDA’s), many of whom have still not passed Australian qualifications.”

“The situation is now so bad that Rural Divisions of General Practice are refusing to place advertisements for city locum places in their broadsheets.”

“This is a crisis that has long been in the making since Health Minister Wooldridge began restrictions to vocational training for GPs and aggravated by federal government training of medical students for more than 10 years.” said Dr Costa

“More than 90%  of Australia is probably now not covered for adequate primary care including monitoring, prevention, screening for cancers and early detection etc. and chronic disease management e.g. poor Diabetes management or Heart conditions or asthma management, for lack of a good primary care team.”

“What chance people in remote areas or in Aboriginal communities?”
“It is a nonsense situation”. said Dr Costa

“It is bad for the patient, and also for the community”. “It means the whole country ends up paying for exorbitant hospital care when it could all have been prevented or minimized by good and timely intervention by an interested GP”.

“Health is now a “dog eat dog” situation with not just the cities targeting rural doctors (and nurses) but also the private system cannibalizing the public system, including doctors in general practice”, Dr Costa said

“The private system is now receiving billions of dollars of taxpayer’s money through the PHI subsidy as well as other legislative measures, which is resulting in further distortions to the medical workforce and making it harder to access health services for most Australians.”

“Australia has fast become a country where you pay, pay, pay for health services, or go without, and to access these services you need to get to the wealthier areas in the bigger towns or cities”, Dr Costa said.