Reply from Greg Hunt, Minister for Health and Aged Care, 26/7/21
June 8 at 7:19 AM ·
A word from Dr Kate Manderson
Bay and Basin GPs... Where have all the doctors gone?
I know there is going to be a lot of negative commentary about this post, but I’m going to be brave and put it up here anyway. Before you hate on me and my doctors and nurses and receptionists, please take the time to read a bit about what’s really behind the loss of our local GP practices. It’s a long read, so please hang in there with it. And please be kind. Thanks.
Soon, the last of the original doctors at Sanctuary Point Medical Centre will retire.
In the last 3 years we’ve lost almost all our area’s senior GPs: Dr Craig, Dr Zdanowicz, Dr Nelmes, Dr Oblovatsky, Dr Masood, Dr Killalea and Dr Flanigan. But did you know the Department of Health doesn’t think that the Bay & Basin has a shortage of GPs? We are not a “Distribution Priority Area”, which means that we have plenty of GPs and we don’t need to replace the ones who have retired.
WTAF?
The Government doesn’t care if you have to see a different doctor every time, or another new trainee doctor who will leave after 6 months. They don’t care if you have to move from practice to practice, they don’t care if the GP you see doesn’t do after hours or nursing home visits, they don’t care if you want a female GP to do your Pap smear. The Government says we have plenty of GPs, and you should just go and see one of the other ones if yours has retired, according to Greg Hunt MP and his Department of Health.
Overseas trained doctors are banned from moving here as GPs - because we have plenty of GPs, apparently. If we really want to find another doctor (if we needed any, that is), we need Australian-trained doctors to come here.
But....
Less than one in five Australian medical students want to be GPs - as hospital-based Specialists they can earn far more, with higher private fees, paid leave and salary packages. Your Medicare rebate covers about 8 minutes with the GP, so doctors who spend more time with you (listen, explain, discuss more than one problem, provide a nurse, wound dressings, iron infusions, after hours roster, nursing home visits...) have to charge a gap - which people in cities are more willing and able to pay. But that’s ok, because we don’t need any more GPs, we have plenty. And who needs more than 8 minutes with their GP? It’s not like your health is more important than a hair cut or a set of nails, right?
The few students that do become GPs are based in larger hospitals first, where they build networks of family, friends and community, and their spouses have jobs they don’t want to quit. Some States and local Councils provide GPs with relocation costs, a house, a car, paid holidays, spouse income support, and a taxpayer-funded clinic to convince them to move. Not for us though. We don’t need any help to get more doctors, because we have plenty of GPs, apparently.
For over thirty years the doctors of Sanctuary Point, St George’s Basin, Collingwood Beach and Banksia St have been training medical students and junior doctors. In almost 15 years, over a thousand medical students have been trained by Wollongong University. Not a single one has come to the Bay and Basin area as a Specialist GP - Dr Erica Dean will be the first. In the last 20 years, there have been almost 30 GP trainees at these practices, and only one is actually still practicing here now. Everyone else went back to the city.
When COVID19 arrived, we chose to take on a COVID19 clinic so local people could be seen and tested locally. Now we have vaccines as well, and we need to do this COVID thing for another year or two (or more...). We just have to do our GP work at the Basin and to Vincentia, where we still have doctors. To be clear - Sanctuary Point GP isn’t closing just because of COVID19, or because the remaining doctors want more money - it’s because THERE ARE NO DOCTORS.
To make up for the retirement of our senior doctors and the ongoing COVID19 pressure, what we really need to do is convince the Department of Health that they are wrong when they say we don’t have a shortage of GPs in our community.
We need to convince them that your Medicare rebate isn’t enough to pay the nurses and receptionists a decent wage unless we kick you out after 8 minutes - or charge a gap. We need to tell them that rural GP clinics can’t compete with State hospitals and health departments on wages and staff and facilities.
Governments stopped listening to GPs about these issues a long time ago. But they will listen to people living in rural communities. Write to them. Tell them your GP has retired and you can’t find a new one. Tell them your health is worth more than the 8-minute Medicare rebate. Tell them you can’t find a GP to see your mum in her nursing home. Tell them that people in rural communities deserve the same healthy life as people in cities... and you can’t have that if GPs won’t move here. And ask them what they are going to do to change it.
And a final message for those who want to blame me personally for these issues. I would be happier, healthier and far more wealthy if I walked away and sold everything to a bulk-billing corporate operator right now. I could look after my disabled daughter, and actually show up to school canteen at Husky like I keep promising. But If I did quit, 20 Shoalhaven women would be out of work, and 10,000 patients would be without a GP, until they were replaced by 8-minute Sydney doctors and online scripts. I don’t want to sell up and walk away, but I can’t keep the doors open for much longer without burning out ... please, write to these Ministers and tell them what you need.
Federal Minister for Health - Greg Hunt
Federal Minister for Aged Care - Richard Colbeck
Federal Minister for Regional Health - Mark Coulton
Federal Member for Gilmore - Fiona Philips
State Minister for Health - Brad Hazzard
State Member for South Coast - Shelley Hancock