With workforce shortages and limited incentives on offer, it is becoming increasingly difficult to convince trainee doctors to take up regional GP positions.
In June 2022, it was announced that all staff employed in public health services would be eligible for a payment of $3000, however the payment does not account for the large portion of general practitioners (GPs) who are contractors.
Doctor Nyree O’Connor, a rural generalist (RG) and GP, who is based in Echuca-Moama, said she was gratified when she first heard there was going to be a payment for public healthcare professionals.
“I thought the funding would be a nice way to acknowledge the efforts and sacrifices that staff in public healthcare have been making,” Dr O’Connor said.
“GPs are extremely fatigued and overworked.
“Over the past few years, we’ve had more doctors retire from our area than we’ve had taking on positions.”
Dr O’Connor was disappointed to learn that she, along with many other colleagues, would not be eligible for the funding because she is a contractor, rather than an employee.
“The hardest part is that despite treating patients in hospital we are ineligible, whilst the employed specialists we’re working alongside on a shared roster in the same hospital are eligible,” she said.
Having recently worked 19 days in a row, Dr O’Connor said it was difficult to encourage trainee doctors to take on regional GP positions when all they could see was GPs burning out around them.
“They can see that there is a shortage of GPs, that the whole workforce is under strain and that there is disparity in the value the government places on GPs compared to specialists,” she said.
“We desperately need more GPs but what incentives are there to encourage people?”
Member for Murray Plains Peter Walsh said doctors in regional hospitals were pushed to be working 19 days straight and more, it was asking for a disaster.
“Doctors are as human as the rest of us and driving them to the point of exhaustion is a prescription for mistakes made from tiredness and distraction — and that’s playing political roulette with people’s lives,” Mr Walsh said.
“Doctors feel undervalued and those in training are looking around like rabbits in the spotlight and have decided the last thing they now want to be is a GP in a country town.”
As to what should be done, Dr O’Connor said the state and federal governments needed to come together to figure out how to fund GPs appropriately.
“I acknowledge there’s no easy answer and it will take much more than one single intervention to address the issue, but we need to figure out a way to make this type of work more appealing,” she said.