CHRIS SMITH:
Well, while Australia has fared much better than most other countries, there is no denying COVID-19 has placed a significant strain on our health system, and there's more to come. Many big city hospitals are nearing capacity, nurses, paramedics, they're under the pump. And demand for mental health care, - particularly during lockdowns - well, it's through the roof. But none of this is new to regional and rural Australia, where health systems were under serious stress, long before the pandemic arrived. In rural New South Wales alone, the number of generalist GPs has dropped from 800 to fewer than 200 over the last decade. For more on this, I want to bring in a man with years of experience working as a gastroenterologist in Northern New South Wales. The Minister for Regional Health, Dr David Gillespie. He joins me from Wauchope in New South Wales. David, how are we going to fix this? It's been going on; it's been descending into what cannot be rescued for so long now. We've got to get regional hospitals and regional health back up to the true standard we expected decades ago.
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
Exactly, Chris, it's great to be back with you, but that is a really chronic problem. We have got long term solutions coming through the pipeline, but to deliver a doctor through a full training programme before she or he can hang their shingle independently, it takes about 10 years, or 12 years even, because some of them now have to do three degrees.
There's a degree to get into medicine, the medical degree, then they're an intern or resident, then they've got to do their college degree. And they finish when they're about 35. Whereas when I finished, I was 23. And then, admittedly, I did speciality training [Audio skip] took another 10 years. But that ends up a lot of them staying in a hospital for a very long time. They get used to a salary. They get used to, you know, knowing what they get, and super.
Or you can go to the country and just have to work independently, run your own business and work at the hospital. And many of them are choosing a salary and a specialist degree over general practise. Even the medical deans are saying they're graduating students are tending towards planning a speciality career. So that's what we're fighting against.
We have got policies in place, and the one that we've just announced is the latest round of the Rural Junior Doctor Training and Innovation Fund, which gets young doctors who are interns or residents out of the hospital and working in rural general practise.
Now, as you mentioned, I grew up in a general practice. My dad was a GP in Queanbeyan. It was a country town then, and the practice was in the front two rooms.
So I grew up in a general practice, so I know all about it. It's the best career.
CHRIS SMITH:
[Talks over] So, David, under the program you've just described, getting them into the bush as an intern. Are they more likely to stay in the bush if you can do that?
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
Yes. In fact, we have a lot of rural medical schools for that very reason. We've expanded them across the Murray-Darling, in WA, in- all around the country. There's 21 rural clinical schools devoted to just that. But this is actually being a doctor, getting them in, not when they're med students, but as a doctor, because it's even more sticky if they're working there when they're a junior training doctor. And that's the essence of that scheme. We don't want them to go down the speciality rabbit hole, because if they go too far, they never come back out and work in general practise. Look, it's the most exciting and rewarding career as a doctor if you're working in a regional town where you're highly valued. You see great, complicated cases because you've got to deal with everything. You don't have 10 specialists two doors down from you. You've got to really be a talented doctor with a lot of skills. We have got a rural generalist training program. We have got a great training program. But what I am also doing is a whole suite of other things. We've got policy working towards getting a different paradigm, so people do think that general practise is a secure financial position, to take up a career in it, and that you will be able to practise it the full extent of your training. Now I- we can't fix all of that…
CHRIS SMITH:
[Interrupts] So one quick question, I haven't got much time left, but one quick question. I want to hook in vaccination rates here, because if people are travelling to regional areas at 80 per cent fully vaccinated, as in New South Wales, when it hits that mark, there'll be other people getting into the regions. There'll be increased- increases in infections. Are the vaccination rates in the bush at the moment sufficient enough to [Audio skip] that onslaught?
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
Well, in most areas they are, but there are some that still are a significant way behind the rest of the state average. That's why they are waiting a bit longer to give those regions the chance to get it at the pharmacy, get it at your GP or get it at one of the local state run clinics, at the hospital or at the pop up clinics. We are trying as quickly as possible to get those areas covered so that they're closer to the state average. The thing is, what they are letting is just double vaccinated people travel first. The logic being if you double vaccinated, the chance of you transmitting it is much less.
CHRIS SMITH:
You do have a little bit of time, a little bit of wiggle room, but boy, people need to make the decision.
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
Nope. There's no excuses now.
CHRIS SMITH:
No, there's none. There is absolutely none. Dr David Gillespie, thank you very much for your time this evening.
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
My pleasure, Chris.