Lack of GPs and medical services in rural areas under fire

“Abysmal” is how the peak health union has described the state of health services in rural and regional Tasmania.

“We’ve lost so many services over the years. Even getting a local GP in areas is now so difficult,” Health and Community Services Union Tasmania Secretary Robbie Moore said.

He said there were significant issues regarding health services in rural areas.

“They’ve cut back on services for allied health such as physio, occupational therapists and podiatry; these services that were vital for people in their own communities that are no longer provided.

“These things ultimately cost the health system more because it means people area more likely to get conditions that mean they’ll have to present to hospital and be admitted to hospital when that could have been avoided through early intervention that used to happen when we had proper regional and remote health services that are no longer provided.”

Pamela Turton-Turner is the president of the Health Action Team Central Highlands (HATCH).

The organisation was founded in the early 2000s and is a health and advocacy group for the remote Central Highlands region.

There is currently only one GP practice in the region, which is situated at Bothwell.

“I live at Wayatinah, and for me, it’s a 142km round trip to go to the doctor,” Ms Turton-Turner said.

“Now I can do that, I’m fortunate, but there are many people who live even further out who simply can’t do that.”

Ms Turton-Turner said the lack of health services in the Central Highlands was compounded even more by the isolated nature of the region.

“It’s also an aging population.

“So, obviously, the older we become, the more likely it is that we do need help from a general practitioner as our first port of call, and we don’t have that.”

HATCH’s number one priority was for a GP clinic to open up at Ouse.

“We have a very good service in Bothwell,” Ms Turton-Turner said.

“But for people who live further out who are suffering from various conditions and who need regular scripts, it is becoming extremely tough.”

Ross Lamplugh co-founded Ochre Health and has spent large chunks of his career working in rural areas.

Ochre Health has clinics in places as far-flung as Strahan and Flinders Island and other remote parts of Australia.

Mr Lamplugh said a large part of the reason rural health services are lacking compared to those in larger population centres is a lack of GPs.

“Back in my day, 50 per cent of graduates became GPs. Now it’s down to about 14 per cent, so there’s not enough GPs to go to these towns.”

He said the financial incentives for GPs working in rural areas were insufficient.

“They’re getting more money to work in Sandy Bay than they are to go and work in rural areas.

“You scratch your head and think, ‘well, why wouldn’t they want to stay in Sandy Bay?’”

Mr Lamplugh said the lifestyle of being in a remote area often did not appeal to GPs either.

“Being a GP at Queenstown, that’s a 10 times worse lifestyle than being a surgeon in Sandy Bay.

“You’re going to be on call potentially every day of the week, you have limited professional support, there’s probably no work for your partner - and if you want your kids to go to a private school, there’s not one very close, so they’d have to board.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked at Queenstown and Bourke in New South Wales, and I absolutely loved it – working in Bourke was probably the highlight of my whole career.

“But it’s hard to get young graduates to want to work in these rural areas.”

Health Consumers Tasmania CEO Ellen Macdonald said services were almost non-existent in some parts of the state.

“The way that it’s described is that all of Tasmania is a thin market in terms of access to primary care.

“But in rural areas, there’s what they call failed markets, so that’s places where they lost their GP.

Ms MacDonald said the scope of practice for health professionals in rural areas needed to be examined.

“I think that there’s a lot of desire to see change and to look at the scope of practice of different practitioners and how there might be other ways to enable access where it’s more difficult to get a GP.

“It essentially isn’t profitable in some regions to set up a GP practice, so in those places it would be good to see what other types of health practitioners might be able to support the care of people locally.”