Page 1058 - Week 04 - Thursday, 1 April 1993
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Mrs Carnell: No, it is not; it is a criticism of you.
MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell interjects that it is a criticism of me, so it is a criticism of me for supporting those valuable community medical practitioners. I do support them and the AMA can criticise me all it likes. They are a valued asset to the community. The medical profession, as a whole, is supported by this Government and we know its value to the community; but when valuable community assets like community medical practitioners are attacked we will rise to their defence.
These community medical practitioners, Madam Speaker, are the key to maintaining access to bulkbilling, which is a must if access to health care is to be based on clinical need and not financial status. So it is very important that we maintain those community medical practitioners. Other advantages include closer links with interdisciplinary services, such as physiotherapists, nutritionists and nurse practitioners, and allowing a more holistic approach to case management. Salaried doctors are also able to give more time to the total needs of the clients, including preventative and educative treatment. Community health services are greatly enhanced by the contribution of community medical practitioners.
The reasons that I have outlined are, in themselves, enough to justify those community medical practitioners. Financially, the practitioners are far from an extravagance, and we should not look at them only in financial terms because there is much more that they provide to the community than value for the dollar. In the 1991-92 financial year the 17 medical practitioners raised a total of $1.3m in revenue for ACT Health.
Mrs Carnell: What did they cost, though?
MR BERRY: Their salary costs were $1.2m.
Mrs Carnell: But that is not including the cost of the premises, or the ancillary staff, or the - - -
MR BERRY: You see, we are different from Mrs Carnell. We do not weigh up services in dollar values. We weigh them up in the service to the community. We are, of course, quite different from the Liberals on this score. They would argue that no service is good for the community unless it makes a profit. We are quite different on that score. We make sure that service to the community is the most important feature.
The claims by the AMA, Madam Speaker, appear to be based purely on their consistent criticism of bulkbilling in the public sector and the private sector. I would urge them, now that the election is over and all the froth and bubble of politics has gone, to pick up the issue of bulkbilling and embrace it rather than fighting it, because if we are ever going to provide a quality service to the community out there bulkbilling is going to be an important feature of it. The Liberals ought to know that it has been turned on its head now. The people of the ACT have voted and have made it clear, even to these Liberals opposite, slow as they are on the uptake, that they do not want to see Medicare interfered with and they want to maintain bulkbilling. So embrace it; you will be better off.
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