Rural Doctors Hope PM's Visit To Rural General Practice "will Be One Of Many", 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 the visit by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to a rural general practice in Murray Bridge, South Australia-following an invitation by RDAA-is a great opportunity for the Prime Minister to hear directly about rural doctors' concerns, and it has urged the visit to "be one of many" that the Prime Minister makes to rural and remote practices across Australia in the coming months. RDAA has also strongly welcomed the participation in the visit of the Federal Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Services Delivery, Warren Snowdon MP.

Bridge Clinic, a rural general practice in Murray Bridge, is run by rural doctors including RDAA immediate past-President, Dr Peter Rischbieth.

Dr Rischbieth, some of his partners, RDAA CEO Steve Sant and representatives of other organisations will meet Mr Rudd and Mr Snowdon today to discuss key issues facing the rural health workforce and rural medical practices, and the best solutions going forward. Mr Rudd and Mr Snowdon will then tour the practice. Earlier in the day, they will attend a wider consultation forum to „take the pulse‟ on healthcare issues with the wider Murray Bridge community.

RDAA wrote to the Prime Minister in August inviting him to participate in a national „fact finding‟ tour of rural hospitals, rural practices, health centres and Aboriginal Medical Services as part of the Federal Government‟s public consultations on national health reform following the final report of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission-a report which unfortunately lacked any substantial recommendations to increase the number of health professionals working in the bush.

RDAA urged the Prime Minister to visit rural and remote communities in each state and the Northern Territory-towns like Murray Bridge, Cloncurry in Queensland, Karratha in Western Australia and Moree in NSW just to name a few-not only to experience the challenges facing the doctors and other health professionals working in the bush but also the success stories where, because of the constructive efforts of local communities and health professionals, sustainable healthcare services have been established and are thriving.

"Given RDAA‟s strong desire to encourage Prime Minister Rudd to consult directly with rural doctors working on-the-ground in country Australia, it is great to be welcoming him and Minister Snowdon to Murray Bridge today" Dr Rischbieth said.

"We hope this is the first of many consultative meetings with rural doctors on location at their practices around rural and remote Australia. We are particularly keen to see the Prime Minister visit some of the more remote general practices across Australia, including Cloncurry in Queensland. "Mr Rudd‟s visit to Bridge Clinic will demonstrate to him the essential role that rural general practices play in country communities. These practices are often one-stop shops in country towns, providing the crucial preventative and primary healthcare-as well as the more complex healthcare-that rural communities need.

"Our practice‟s 13 partners have combined rural medical experience of over 300 years. We provide 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 interns, medical students and others. We have 5 practice nurses on site, an Aboriginal health clinic at our satellite branch, and we host 28 visiting specialists and allied health professionals including psychologists.

"As the town‟s emergency doctors, we treat anything from heart attacks, restricted airways, stabilisation of acutely psychotic patients and paediatric emergencies through to car accidents and farming accidents. We deliver around 280 babies each year and provide the anaesthesia for general surgery like gynaecological operations and hip replacements. This means that local residents not only receive surgery close to their home and families, but we take pressure off Adelaide‟s hospitals by providing the surgery locally.

"Bridge Clinic sees an average of 417 patients per day (including 126 patients per day in our practice‟s emergency rooms) and we treated a total of 105,000 patients in the past year. "In short, our rural general practice is a GP Super Clinic except in name-and this is a key message we want to get across to Prime Minister Rudd today: that if the Federal Government wants to roll out more of its GP Super Clinics across rural Australia, the best opportunity to do so is by leveraging on the rural practice infrastructure that already exists in many country communities. Now is the perfect time for the Government to be investing in initiatives that support existing multi-functional rural general practices and entice and retain in the bush more of the health professionals-the doctors, nurses and allied health professionals-who staff them.

"Murray Bridge and its surrounding region has a population of around 30,000 people-and the town‟s population is expected to double by 2025. This growth forecast makes it essential that Murray Bridge can retain and expand its local health workforce and health infrastructure into the future-a situation that is being faced by medical practices in many regional centres around Australia.

"Our practice partners have invested substantially in new infrastructure to accommodate the growing needs of our practice, the medical students and interns we train, and the visiting specialists who provide services to our patients. While there has been some financial contribution to this infrastructure from the Federal Government, ironically this contribution is taxed heavily, creating a huge disincentive for medical practices like ours to apply for this critical funding.

"We would also like to get across to the Prime Minister the crucial role of small rural hospitals in ensuring country Australians have adequate access to local medical care. Many hospitals in the towns surrounding Murray Bridge have been closed or downgraded over the past decade, resulting in Murray Bridge‟s doctors, nurses and other health professionals-and the Murray Bridge Soldiers Memorial Hospital-coming under increased pressure in meeting growing patient demand. Seven maternity units in the towns surrounding Murray Bridge have been closed in recent years, forcing some pregnant women to travel over 2 hours to Murray Bridge to give birth. There have been numerous occasions when roadside births-and maternal haemorrhages-along country roads have been narrowly averted. This type of situation should not be allowed to happen.

"The other key points we‟d like to get across in today‟s meeting are the urgent need for a Rural Rescue Package to entice and retain more doctors in rural and remote Australia (particularly the next generation of Australian-trained doctors), the need for better supports for overseas trained doctors who are such an essential component of the rural medical workforce, the need for better e-health and infrastructure supports for rural practices, and the need for additional training positions for Australian medical graduates in rural general practices.

"We greatly appreciate the time that Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Snowdon have invested in visiting Murray Bridge today. We know the visit will provide them with a valuable insight into the role that rural general practices play in country Australia, and will clearly demonstrate to them why these practices are absolutely essential in maintaining sustainable and vibrant rural and remote communities."

Source
Rural Doctors Association of Australia

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