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Regions also deserve top quality healthcare (Ballarat Courier, opinion)
5 February 2008
Every so often a government report comes out and states something which has for a long time been obvious to the people living with the problem.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's medical workforce report last month told us that the growth of GPs has not kept up with the growth of the population.
We know that this is a problem across Australia, but for thousands of families in Ballarat, it's a daily crisis. The city keeps growing but the number of doctors is not keeping up.
When the Hawke Government introduced Medicare to Australia in 1984, we hoped it would make health care free and accessible to all. It sounds great in theory.
The reality is, however, that in 2008, residents of Ballarat and other regional and rural areas of Victoria simply cannot get an appointment to see a GP. And it is nearly impossible for new arrivals to find a clinic with open books.
So chronic conditions are not being managed, ailments are not being treated and families are going without basic medical attention.
Elderly patients are waiting for hours for appointments at bulk billing clinics and residents are forced to drive to medical centres in other towns for GP appointments.
Doctors hate turning patients away but the alternative - to work longer and potentially unsafe hours in order to see all patients in need - won't fix the problem.
We need to attract new doctors to the area. The Federal Government can help, by reinstating Ballarat's Area of Need Classification and providing real incentives for GPs to work and stay in the area.
Ballarat's Area of Need classification was removed in late 2007 though the number of full-time doctors remains roughly the same. A reinstatement of the classification could make it easier to attract overseas trained doctors to the area.
And as for incentives, we are competing with other states to attract doctors so offering the same or better conditions is a must.
We also need to attract junior doctors to general practice.
Each year we see fewer and fewer young doctors choosing general practice as a career path. Medical student numbers have grown in recent years so there is potential for general practice to grow but we need to invest in training and infrastructure to facilitate this. GPs donate their time and their practices to train the next generation of GPs. It costs time and money, and some general practices simply don't have the room. Training is a tough commitment to make when you've got a waiting room full of people.
This means setting-up general practice training places so young doctors get a taste for general practice early on. We also need to encourage more GPs to get involved in training the next generation of doctors. This includes removing the financial disincentives, and in some cases, providing some help with the additional infrastructure to accommodate students in the practice.
The new Federal Government has the opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to improving healthcare by increasing general practice training places for medical students.
Both State and Federal Governments need to address GP shortages and adequately plan for the future to ensure that residents of Ballarat and regional Victoria receive the same high standards of healthcare as their city counterparts.
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