Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Taking it back to Mr. Rudd.

Members of the Need More GPs group met with the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s representative on October 31, at his Griffith electorate office.
We pointed out that the ideas (in respect of the critical GP shortage) that we put to Mr Rudd at a meeting in May (and to Nicola Roxon in September) still have not been satisfactorily addressed despite a welter of correspondence from Canberra public servants.  Mr Samuel Walker, of the Prime Minister’s Griffith electorate office, said he could understand our concern, and undertook to refer the issue back to the relevant Departmental officers.
In summary, our suggestions to relieve the GP shortage in the short to medium-term are:

1.To assist the urban crisis: a short moratorium (say, 6-12 months) on the provider number restriction, with some other conditions: only Australian residents or citizens who are fully registered and have a demonstrable urban commitment. This could allow an uptake of IMGs into urban practices at risk of closing, without causing an exodus from the bush
2.A reduction of the time-limit on IMGs obtaining unrestricted provider numbers from 10 to three years. Three years seems a reasonable amount of time to demonstrate a commitment to the country. It is also short enough to make up skilling not too much of an issue for IMGs who have not found work in Australia for whatever reason. We also suggest that as a three-year requirement is less intimidating than a 10-year one this may increase the number of doctors prepared to consider going to the bush.
3. A ‘Welcome Back’ package; an up skilling and mentoring program to assist doctors return to work and temporary assistance to GPs who wish to work part-time while their children are under-school age, in the form of a subsidy of their medical indemnity cost, to be repaid (as is the student HECS bill) when their working hours increase substantially.
4. Increase rural Medicare rebates by 20-30%.  At present there is no difference income-wise between rural and urban doctors.
For a fuller discussion, please go to "The Solutions Discussion" link at the top of the sidebar. 

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