THERE is a worrying shortage of general practitioners in the Frankston area, according to numerous medical centre operators who spoke at a senate inquiry last week.
A senate inquiry into the provision of general practitioner and related primary health services to outer metropolitan, rural, and regional Australians was initiated last year. A hearing for the inquiry was held at the Frankston Arts Centre last week, 7 March.
Workers in charge of medical clinics across Frankston and the surrounding areas spoke at the hearing. They voiced their concerns at the growing number of GPs leaving their clinics, and the difficulties they have encountered trying to replace them.
In her submission at the hearing, Langwarrin Medical Clinic practice manager Tegan Whatley called for a “review of the facts and figures of our LGA in particular” and “our overall structure of Medicare and billing and how that can help in terms of getting priority general practitioners to areas that need them.”
“My clinic, the Langwarrin Medical Clinic, falls within the Frankston LGA, with an increasing population that has a level of socioeconomic disadvantage, with poorer health outcomes overall. These are long-term issues that will continue, leading to a bigger problem down the line if we don’t do something now,” she said. “I’ve only been at Langwarrin for a short period, after working in health care for several years. When I interviewed for the position, there were nine GPs, mostly part time. By the time I got here three weeks later, to actually take the job, they were down to three and barely floating, for lack of a better description. It got to a point where they were paying rent, consumables—all those extra things—out of their own pockets.”
Ballarto Medical Centre and St Mary Medical Centre group operations manager Rachael Hatzopoulos also shared her clinic’s experiences with a GP shortage at the hearing. “Our practice is in Carrum Downs. One practice has an active patient database of 10,000. The other has 6,000. We provide after-hours services. Our clinics open 365 days of the year. Typically, we had recruited overseas trained doctors to work after hours. At Ballarto Medical Centre we had five after-hours GPs. Over the course of the last couple of years I’ve got none left,” she said.
“We used to open until 10pm. Now I’m relying on the full-time day doctors to support the after-hours service, but it’s not sustainable for them. They’re tired, like everybody else.”
Another submitter, Dr Ravi Ravoori from MyHealth Medical Centre said “I never thought there would be such a hard time to find a GP. Initially I was looking for good GPs, but now any GP is okay. In the community we need GPs to be available for the day we want them to be—not a week later or 10 days later, which is where today’s clinic stands.”
After the hearing concluded, Dunkley MP Peta Murphy called on the federal government to “put measures in place to ensure all Australians have quick and easy access to healthcare in their own communities.”
“Local practices identified the federal government’s change to the distribution priority area indicator as a major barrier to recruiting more doctors,” she said.