NATARSHA BELLING:
As we know, a certain health crisis, an aged care crisis is gripping many parts of our country. We know the serious situation in many cities across Australia, but it is certainly a massive issue and has been for many years in many regional parts of our great country, is the result of years of neglect from both the state and federal governments from both sides of politics. Many of our hospital situations in regional areas, they're without adequate staff or adequate training. Many people are having to go from rural and remote areas to either the cities to get adequate health services or go to their major metropolitan areas. Joining us now is Regional Health Minister Dr David Gillespie- Gillespie, rather, to chat what is happening with our regional health crisis. Good morning, Minister. Thanks so much for joining us.
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
My pleasure, Natarsha. Yeah, rural and regional health is right at the core of my responsibilities. And you've mentioned a few of the problems, but there are a lot of good stories, too. We have had a stronger rural health strategy for several years now; between 2016-17 and now, there's 1300 extra GP's working in regional, rural and remote areas. You wouldn't realise that but there are. And there's 1200 extra nurses working in that same area. And allied health professions - that's physios, occupational therapists - since 2016 to now, there is 2500. But that is not to say we don't need to do a whole lot more. There's problems in the public health system of hospitals in regional areas and access to services, GP and specialists. But we have a lot of things lined up that are already rolled out and we've just turbocharged them in the last budget.
NATARSHA BELLING:
David, I think it's fantastic. I'm a huge advocate for rural Australia. We need to ensure that the people in rural areas get exactly the same medical services as those that live in metropolitan regions. How important do you think it is that we ensure people in regional areas get access to adequate health care?
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
Well, having worked in health as a doctor for 33 years before I came into parliament, I- it's in my DNA, it runs in my veins. But in the last budget, we have got improved access to MRIs, the most accurate diagnostic and technology available. That's been deregulated. So, if a radiology practise in regional Australia that wants to get a Medicare funding licence, go right ahead. We've also, as you know, got 19 rural medical schools operating from all the major universities in regional Australia.
But we've just added another 80 medical student places around this network. They're up for grabs, and that will grow each year, another 80 young med students training in regional Australia. We're supporting the aeromedical services of Flying Doctor, CareFlight and Little Wings, and we have also supported an amazing facility in regional Queensland at the Heart of Australia bus, which is not only just delivering cardiology services around many remote towns, but it's also doing chest health, psychiatry, endocrinology, diabetes management. It's a great service, but we have got long term strategies in place and they are working. We've also increased the bulk billing incentive in the last budget, and the more remote you are, the bigger the bulk billing incentive is.
And we have a lot of embedded policies of workforce incentive, extra payments besides what Medicare pays if a doctor is working in a regional and remote area as opposed to a metro area. So there's many layers and we're committed to working with our state governments, which run the hospitals to fix this dilemma, where we have country hospitals with retiring multi-skilled GPs, and we need to populate them with young multi-skilled GPs.
NATARSHA BELLING:
David, you make an excellent point there. The fact that years ago, growing up in the country, I knew firsthand the local GP was trained across everything you could possibly imagine. There is still a massive issue, though, in rural areas about retaining good GP's, because that's a result of a lot of things, is the fact that they're facing increasing pressure in regional areas.
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
It's a bit- there's no one single reason, there's just lots of little things that add up. Part of the training paradigm we've addressed, we have a rural generalist training program with dedicated spots. We just- last year and this year started to expand rural generalist training through the Australian College of Rural Remote Medicine. Royal Australian College of GPs is on board, they've got their rural training speciality program, to get that multi-skilled GP that's just as comfortable in the clinic where you see them with your family, or in the emergency department, or in the maternity labour ward delivering a baby. My dad was one of those older, multi-skilled GP's, and we have got a cohort that is training to have those skills.
We are just trying to get more of them. But then there's the partner issue. A lot of doctors, over which half are women, have partners by the time they finish their training. When I finished, it was about six years of med school and an internship, and you could hang your shingle, whereas now you've got to do two degrees to be a GP like any other specialist. So instead of being 25 or 26 and deciding where you're going to set up, now you're about 32 to 34. So by that time, people have got partners and partner careers.
So, we've been working with our country colleagues to change the paradigm and do more of that second degree- after you've done your uni, you do your vocational training to become a member of a specialist college, whether it's the GP colleges or a surgical or a psychiatry. We have changed the paradigm to do that second-degree training in regional Australia so that when you're putting your roots down, you're not stuck in a big city. We've tried to flip the paradigm and we've put extra money into that with a specialist training program - $700 million we just announced the other day - to train more of the registrars in specialities in regional towns going over the next four years.
NATARSHA BELLING:
David, thank you for putting such a great focus on regional healthcare because it's such an important issue. What is your biggest hurdle you're facing right now?
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
Look, to change the mindset. It's a fantastic career. There's been a lot of talking down of the profession. I'm trying to talk it up, because I know how important primary healthcare is. It's been the base of our whole healthcare system. And general practice, we're trying to make general sexy again. About 20, 30 years ago, there was this push towards everyone had to be a specialist for the left elbow or the right finger rather than the whole body. And we're trying to get that multi-skilled primary care practitioner, and in particular in the country, also have hospital-based skills, working at the highest extent of their appropriate training, and that's rural general-ism, or the old GP obstetrician term or GP anaesthetists. That sort of doctor is what we need in country towns.
I'm on a mission with my state health ministers to repopulate their country hospitals, because at the same time as that rush to speciality, public hospitals in all the states have gone towards centralisation. And I think that's been a mistake. We want to have more skills distributed across all the country hospitals, not just in the big major centres.
NATARSHA BELLING:
Yeah, incredibly well said. Dr David Gillespie, thanks so much for joining us this morning on Australia Today.
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
My pleasure, Natarsha.
NATARSHA BELLING:
You have a great day.