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Unhealthy situation developing in Ballarat (Ballarat Courier, opinion editorial)
By Dr Doug Travis.
3 March 2009.
The state government is constantly telling us that Victoria is the place to be.
It may be the place to be for many, but it is not if you’re new to Ballarat and need to see a GP. It is certainty not the place to be if you live in a rural area and need after-hours medical treatment.
Inadequate access to health care in the country contributes to poorer health outcomes. Those living in rural and regional areas are likely to live shorter lives and face more illness than their city counterparts.
The disparity between rural and metropolitan services is growing because there aren’t enough doctors in country Victoria. GPs and specialists continue to favour metropolitan areas.
This is not surprising when the incentive schemes are so patchy and don’t compensate doctors and their families for relocating their lives. For rural practice, the prospect of being on call for weeks on end and being woken in the middle of the night is a downside many doctors would rather avoid.
The Ballarat region has one of the worst GP-to-population ratios in the state, with just one general practitioner to between 1450 and 1599 people. There are only two places with worse ratios: Albury Wodonga and the Eastern Ranges. The city keeps growing but the number of doctors does not keep up.
The federal government has made some recent progress in addressing doctor shortages, with increased numbers of GP training places and investments in capital infrastructure to expand teaching spaces.
The state government, on the other hand, has overlooked rural and regional doctor shortages in successive budgets.
To help rural and regional Victoria to retain its local doctors and attract more medical practitioners to areas in need, AMA Victoria has presented the Brumby Government with a Rural Workforce Rescue Package, as part of its Budget Submission.
The proposed $94.6 million package aims to reduce some of the barriers that prevent doctors from working or staying in rural and regional areas.
It is important that we improve working conditions for General Practitioners providing hospital services. Many of these doctors are burdened with excessive workloads, have demanding on-call rosters, after-hours calls and little professional support.
The rescue package recommends retention allowances to reward long service to the community, remuneration for phone calls in the middle of the night, and initiatives to promote safe rosters. It advocates better staffing ratios at rural hospitals to reduce the risk of fatigue and burden, particularly on junior doctors.
We need to acknowledge what a great job our rural and regional doctors do in caring for local communities, and ensure they have sustainable workloads, and are well-supported.
A range of measures is needed to fix the doctor shortage, and addressing medical workforce attraction and retention is one part of the solution.
We need action now – and funds allocated in the May budget – to improve access to good quality health care in the Ballarat region and ensure that we have enough experienced doctors in the system to train the next generation of doctors.
Then perhaps Victoria will be the place to be for healthcare excellence.
Dr Doug Travis is president of the Australian Medical Association Victoria.
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