Rural Doctors "Very Pleased" With Significant Hearing From Prime Minister, Australia

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 15 Oct 2009 - 1:00 PDT

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The Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) says today's visit by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to the Bridge Clinic rural general practice in Murray Bridge, South Australia-following an invitation by RDAA-has been extremely positive, with the Prime Minister giving rural doctors significantly more time than had been scheduled for the meeting and a wide range of critical rural health issues having been covered.

Bridge Clinic is operated by rural doctors including RDAA immediate past-President, Dr Peter Rischbieth.

The practice's 13 partners have combined rural medical experience of over 300 years. The practice provides comprehensive primary care for Murray Bridge and the surrounding region; inpatient care at the local hospital (including anaesthetic and obstetric care); accident and emergency care both at the practice and the hospital; and training placements for doctors-in-training, medical students and others. The practice has 5 practice nurses on site, an Aboriginal health clinic at its satellite branch, and hosts 28 visiting specialists and allied health professionals including psychologists.

After an extensive tour of the clinic, Prime Minister Rudd and the Federal Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Services Delivery, Warren Snowdon MP, met with Dr Rischbieth, some of his practice partners, practice staff and RDAA CEO Steve Sant to discuss key issues facing the rural health workforce and rural general practices, and the best solutions going forward.

"The fact that a scheduled 15 minute meeting turned into nearly an hour-long briefing with Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Snowdon shows just how keen they were to hear directly from rural doctors and other rural health professionals about the key issues facing these health professionals, general practices and hospitals in country Australia" Dr Rischbieth said. "We were able to raise in detail with Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Snowdon key concerns such as:

- The need for better rural practice infrastructure supports to enable rural general practices to meet growing patient demand and provide more training opportunities for medical students and young doctors. Mr Rudd was concerned to hear that Federal Government funding that aims to assist rural general practices to develop and expand their practice infrastructure is currently being taxed up to 45%-he indicated that this is something he will be following-up with the relevant departments.

- The need for better supports for overseas trained doctors who play a vital role in providing medical care in rural and remote Australia, given the current shortage of Australian-trained doctors in the bush. Ironically, these doctors cannot access Medicare when they or their families need medical treatment themselves and in many states their children cannot access free public education. There is also a need to provide these doctors with better social, continuing medical education and professional supports.

- The severe shortage of doctors and other health professionals in country Australia, and what needs to be done to combat this shortage-including the need for additional measures such as rural loadings on Medicare patient rebates to support more existing rural doctors to remain in rural and remote Australia and encourage more Australian-trained medical graduates to move to the bush, as well as better supports for high school students from rural areas to study medicine and other health disciplines (given they are much more likely to return to the bush to practise after graduation) and the provision of more post-graduate internships in rural general practices (given medical graduates who undertake such placements are 4 times more likely to embark on rural practice in their ensuing medical career).

"A range of other issues were also discussed with Mr Rudd and Mr Snowdon, including the need for better support programs for rural patients who must travel to distant centres for medical treatment, and the need for additional supports to ensure the wider utilisation of e-health technologies in reducing the need for patients to travel for the diagnosis and treatment of some conditions.

"Pleasingly, after hearing RDAA's concerns, Prime Minister Rudd invited us to also work directly with his Office in combating the key issues fuelling the continuing health workforce crisis in rural and remote Australia.

"We came away from the meeting with a great feeling that the Prime Minister now clearly appreciates the wide scope of work that rural doctors undertake in their communities and the additional workload they carry-from providing general practice-based primary care right through to being the emergency doctor at the local hospital.

"In rural and remote areas, the same doctors who see you in their general practice invariably are the ones who will be working closely with a range of other health professionals at the local hospital to deliver your baby, stabilise an acutely psychotic patient, save your life in the hospital ED after a car accident or a heart attack, treat your child in a paediatric emergency, and provide the anaesthesia for local surgery such as orthopaedic surgery, gynaecological surgery and general surgery like ear, nose and throat operations.

"We were also very pleased that Prime Minister Rudd could see the benefit of better supporting existing rural general practice infrastructure across Australia as the building block on which to further roll-out the Federal Government's GP Super Clinic initiative-utilising existing rural general practice infrastructure would be a very cost-effective and time-effective way to boost access to healthcare in the bush.

"Prime Minister Rudd indicated during the meeting that he would be open to visiting additional rural and remote general practices across Australia-this is something we would certainly encourage and would be happy to facilitate. Bridge Clinic is just one of thousands of rural general practices right across country Australia. We would like to host the Prime Minister on fact-finding visits to a wide variety of rural general practices, from those that have numerous doctors through to those with just one doctor, from those that are operating as sustainable businesses through to those that struggle to remain open on a day-by-day basis.

"We hope that today's visit to Murray Bridge and the Bridge Clinic rural general practice has been as productive for Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Snowdon as it has been for rural doctors. "We again thank Mr Rudd and Mr Snowdon for the time they have invested in visiting Murray Bridge today."

Source
Rural Doctors Association of Australia