Health promise a rural rip-off says Doctors’ group

The Rural Doctors Association of Australia has criticised the latest election health promise by Labor, saying that it will only result in worse outcomes for rural and remote communities.

The Labor policy promises to expand the areas in which International Medical Graduates (IMGs) and bonded doctors (who gained entry to medical school in return for a commitment to work in an area of need) can work, by designating all regional centres, plus some metro areas, as Distribution Priority Areas (DPA) for these GPs

RDAA president, Dr Megan Belot, said that Labor had completely missed the point of the presentations made to the Senate Inquiry into access to GPs, and are now promising a policy change that will suck desperately needed GPs out of rural and remote areas and into metro and outer metro areas.

“There are many regions in Australia that are struggling to attract doctors,” Dr Belot said. “But to apply the same classifications to metro and outer-metro areas to rural and remote areas is lazy policy and a terrible solution. It just rips off rural to buy city votes.

“Rural workforce shortages and metro workforce shortages provide two very different challenges that need targeted solutions. Diverting doctors who are providing care for rural communities into large regional and metro areas is definitely not it.”

Dr Belot said RDAA has consistently warned government, the opposition, and the Department of Health about the risks when expanding rural policy and initiatives to address issues in metropolitan and large regional centres, because rural and remote Australians suffer as a result.

“For Labor to come in and just say … well now, we think that all large regional areas, plus some metro areas, should also be classified as DPA… highlights their lack of understanding. The vast majority of doctors limited by DPA are IMGs,” she said.

“Many choose to work in a rural area for their required term while their family remains in the city where they fully intend to return to once their provider number becomes unrestricted.”

DPAs were designed to ensure that there are doctors available to address the very real maldistribution of medical workforce, support communities that are very difficult to recruit to and provide areas for Bonded Doctors and IMGs to work in order to gain a Medicare provider number. It was developed with extensive industry consultation, with a huge amount of data collated behind it to ensure that these doctors made it into the communities that need them the most.