Page 1332 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 25 March 2009
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Nonetheless, we are pleased that there is tripartisan support now for this position of a genuine inquiry. We are very hopeful that there can be some good ideas and some ways forward that come out of this. The people of the ACT are not looking for excuses; they are looking to us as their local representatives to act; they are looking for us to come up with solutions that will ensure that they do have access to GPs and, hopefully, that they have access to GPs somewhere within their area, particularly for our most disadvantaged Canberrans. That is something that we will continue to fight for. That is something that I am very hopeful will be able to be advanced in the committee process.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.32): I commend Mr Hanson for what he has put here as a motion before the Assembly, because it is a very important issue that affects each and every member of the ACT community. One of the great things that used to be available in the ACT at large was immediate access to your GP. I think the health of those living in the ACT has been impacted by a number of factors—things like we were younger, we were fitter, we were healthier—but we were also very well served. A number of GPs have said to me that part of the problem for them as GPs and part of their frustration of operating in the ACT, firstly, as doctors and, secondly, as small businesspeople is that they are part of a system that does not deliver what they need for their clients—their patients. That is often in relation to access to the hospital, where doctors who would normally refer patients to the hospital instead send them home because they cannot get quick treatment in the emergency department at the hospital because of the wait times.
I notice that paragraph 2(e) of Mr Hanson’s motion refers to how to arrest and reverse the decline in GP numbers in the short and longer terms, and the motion also refers to the reasons pertaining to the shortage. Part of the shortage is that, when you are casting around to set up your practice in this country, you look for these facilities for the infrastructure and the backup that you require to be able to do your job properly. Whilst all GPs would not like to see their patients in the acute care part of the system, they do know that, at times, patients will have to go to the hospital. It is access to the hospital that causes them a great deal of grief in the speedy treatment of their patients.
We all know that the longer that you wait for treatment, the worse the outcome that you receive. The stories of long-term waits and poor wait times and delayed surgery are legion. I suspect that part of the reason that it is hard to attract people to Canberra to practise their medicine here is the fact that the system no longer has the reputation that it enjoyed. We should have the premier health service in the country. We do not have the dissipation of service over vast areas like, say, in Western Australia or Queensland. We do not have the huge health problems that the Indigenous population faces in places like the Northern Territory and parts of South Australia. We are not isolated like Tasmania. As a city/state, we all live within a reasonable distance of the major hospitals in this territory. But, although you live within a reasonable distance, the problem is that you often cannot get in.
It is the way that system works at the acute end that I believe has a significant impact on the desire of doctors, whether they be GPs or specialists, to actually come and operate in the ACT. You only have to look over the years at the fact that communities
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