Laura Tingle of The Australian Financial Review has seen fit to comment on our grass roots campaign; the article is in the Opinion section, page 83, in today's edition. Here is an extract:
"Not everyone in Australia loves Kevin Rudd at the moment. At home in his seat of Griffith, a grass roots campaign has begun to try to get some action on a chronic shortage of doctors.
Local patients and GPs have started a website called needmoregps.blogspot.com/ because shortages of doctors-and difficulties experienced by local clinics with the bureaucracy in hiring overseas trained doctors – are claimed to threaten two clinics, leaving 7,500 patients without a doctor.
This isn’t some remote part of Australia but suburban Brisbane in the spotlight, and the PM’s own electorate to boot.
The locals have been underwhelmed with the response from Rudd so far.
In a week in which the Prime Minister is setting off around the world to establish his credentials as a middle-power statesman, and hosting a significant Council of Australian Governments meeting why are we so concerned about doctor shortages in Griffith?
Because in a ‘six degrees of separation’ way, they show how all international and federal politics – and all that talk that seems to be going on – can ultimately rebound locally.
Australia’s reputation abroad after last year’s Haneef affair has made it hard to attract over seas trained doctors to Queensland.
Even the ones who are here and determined to stay are being driven made by bureaucratic processes in which states don’t seem to have had adequate records of who has worked where and, even if they have, require different qualifications for registration in other states.
There is also the issue of which areas are declared as areas of medical workforce shortage – areas that get precedence in the placement of overseas trained doctors. The electorate of Griffith isn’t one of them, so even overseas trained doctors who live in the area have to go and work in areas of designated shortage in the bush."
4 comments:
I think you'll find there's more than two practices in Griffith about to shut their doors, and for the same reason: a senior doctor with no succession arrangements.
How many voters would it take to make Griffith the new Bennelong? If Greens and Libs exchange preferences, like they did in recent council election, maybe His PMship might sit up and take notice.
Hello anonymous; I fear you are right about the other closures. We need something to change before the next election - there wont be many of us left by then.
If this is happening the the PMs electorate, I think that it could be happening in other areas also. My experiences in public clinics has not been ideal.
I prefer my own GP with whom I have built up trust and who understands my problems.
WE NEED GPS NOW.
Hello anonymous: It is certainly happening in other urban areas in all states - some urban areas are now as badly off, or worse, than some rural areas. We must keep alive the role of the traditional GP that you describe - who learns about you over a long period of time. I cant be convinced that the Super-Clinics will deliver the same sort of service.
Post a Comment