Regional health trainwreck due to multiple broken levers : Reports

Wednesday 9 October 2024

The regional health trainwreck has been confirmed as the system designed to funnel doctors and other workforce to the regions failed its own health check, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health said after reviewing major reports released on Tuesday.

The Albanese Government released the Working Better for Medicare Review report and the Review of General Practice Incentives Expert Advisory Panel Report on Tuesday, with Minister Butler acknowledging to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners that morning that he is constantly lobbied on the Distribution Priority Areas (DPA) and Modified Monash Model (MMM).

“From the moment Labor changed the DPA I have been calling out the negative impacts it would have on regional Australians,” Member for Mallee Dr Webster said.

The Working Better for Medicare Review found that:

• “The current method of determining DPA status via automatic application of MMM2-7 blankets means that of the 827 GP catchments across Australia, 700 (85%) now have DPA status. The almost universal view of submissions and consultations suggest DPA in its current format is no longer an effective distribution lever.” (emphasis added).

• proposed that the MMM ‘should no longer be used to establish blanket rule exemptions’ and determined that “each GP catchment area would individually accorded DPA / non DPA status” and

• held that a similar mechanism, the Distribution of Workforce Shortage (DWS), was no longer fit-for-purpose saying “There are too many areas within cities, and heavily populated centres outside these cities, that are classified as DWS”

“In short, the Reviews say what I have been saying for years – the MMM is no longer fit for purpose and Labor have wrecked DPA workforce lever to shunt far too many international medical graduates into suburban areas of capital cities,” Dr Webster said.

“Labor’s brazen political decisions to rob regional health care to buy votes in the cities has left us with far poorer health outcomes.

“I have been working hard with health workers at the coalface, peak bodies and colleagues to develop immediate and lasting regional health policy reforms to restore regional healthcare.

“These Reviews have red-flagged Minister Butler’s regional health trainwreck. He must fix the broken levers so rural, regional and remote healthcare gets the urgent help that we need.”

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