Page 1318 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 25 March 2009
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In relation to some areas of hope and progress, at the end of this year when we have our next round of graduates—that will be our third year—we will be exporting doctors for the first time. That is a very important part of growing our own local workforce. We have graduates coming in who are traditionally older than medical students in other jurisdictions. They come in as graduates. They have often got family already here and, as we saw last year, they are all wanting to stay here.
What we have done is to increase our GP training opportunities for junior doctors to actually be exposed to general practice so that they can see what general practice offers them. Hopefully at the end of their training some of them, or a few of them or more of them than has been the case, will choose a specialty career in general practice.
The ANU Medical School is working along the lines of what we had always hoped. We have got a GP workforce working group. This was established back in 2003. The after-hours locum medical service was actually established arising from one of the recommendations from that group. I think everyone will admit that CALMS—a service which operates at both hospitals—has been very good in meeting the needs of some Canberrans.
We have worked with general practice in a recruitment campaign trying to get doctors from outside the ACT to come here. One of the benefits of the recruitment campaign that we funded last year—I think it has been funded for about 15 months now—has been the ability for that project officer to cut through a lot of the red tape and of the time practices were spending in terms of recruiting doctors from outside the ACT into the ACT.
This officer, who is working out of the Division of General Practice, was recruited in May 2008; so that is only a year ago. Since that time, 11 area-of-need authorisations have been approved, 39 genuine calls of interest from potential GPs have been received, five new GPs have commenced and up to 13 other GPs have been offered positions to commence in 2009.
We have, through ACT Health, the GP adviser who provides advice to the ACT executive on GP issues. That officer works very closely with the peak body, the division and the AMA. In fact, that general practitioner will be heading up the ACT government’s investigation and will report back to the Assembly in September.
We have been working very closely with the division and the AMA on the nurse-led walk-in centres. I am very pleased to be able to say that, based on discussions I have recently held with both the AMA and the division, they have lent their in-principle support to such clinics. They will operate in the first instance within the hospital and then we will evaluate the success or otherwise of the clinics before we make further plans about expanding the program. I think there is a fair bit of work the Assembly can do. I welcome the Assembly’s interest in the issue. If there are constructive responses outside of the issues that I have already outlined and that Health are already investigating on my behalf, I would welcome that.
It is important when there is an issue like this facing the community that does not have clear black-and-white solutions—and let us accept that we cannot wave a magic
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