Page 3309 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 August 2008
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
because we have not had our own. That has been the only reason that we have been able to employ interns in years gone by. We are in debt to the New South Wales universities for allowing us to employ interns in our hospital.
The situation has now changed. We have our graduates coming through now in the first year. We have more graduates wanting to work here in the hospital than we have ever had before, and that is a sign of how well the ANU medical school is doing and how well the hospital is doing. It also endorses the ACT government’s 10-year plan because it is showing the students that we are serious about addressing the growing demand for health services across the ACT community.
This is an area in which the opposition failed so dramatically in the policy that they announced yesterday. It has flaws at every point. It has not been welcomed by anybody. Nobody has come out and said, “This is a great idea.” All of the health stakeholders are highlighting the issues that they have from their own point of view. And the reality is that it cannot be delivered. The ACT government cannot establish bulk-billing clinics and bulk-bill under the Health Insurance Act unless there is the express agreement of the commonwealth, which would be highly unlikely, as we are currently negotiating the Australian health care agreement, and if they are not going to bulk-bill then they have not allocated enough money to do it. It also fails to understand that these would be set up in direct competition with the GP workforce that operates here now.
The motion that Mrs Burke has moved today also makes the point that there is a shortage of after-hours bulk-billing options. It is not the case any longer. Primary Health Care offer after-hours bulk-billing options that many people use. And this is not the area for non-urgent conditions. If Mrs Burke had taken the time to have a look at the data, she would have seen that the biggest demand for GP access for non-urgent patients occurs during the day. That is where we have to get the focus right. We need to make sure that there are options available during the day because people with non-urgent conditions do not seek to present to a GP at midnight. They will wait until the next day to see them. If they do need medical attention in the night then they come to the emergency department, which is probably the right place for them to go.
So even the presumptions that are made in this motion are incorrect. The demand for GP services occurs during the day. With respect to these clinics, you will have to recruit the doctors from somewhere. As we have seen with other clinics, when new clinics have opened, they take their doctors from another clinic, if you can afford to pay them. The current rate is about $500,000 to recruit and poach a doctor, and offer them another employment opportunity. But that is even if you put in the money in acknowledging that you are now not going to run them as bulk-billing centres. So it is misleading to say that you could even do this.
I guess that is the luxury of being in opposition: you do not have to come up with anything that is realistic, anything that is achievable or anything that is deliverable. I guess on the B team you know you are not going to be re-elected, so you are able to come out with these half-baked, flawed policy initiatives. I will give it to you: they sound easy and simple to digest, but when you scratch the surface you see they cannot be delivered on, they are not funded properly and in fact they will work to the detriment of the existing GP population in the ACT. We need to look after the GPs that we currently have here.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .