Medicare reforms a welcome treatment but not a cure for healthcare woes, according to Geraldton GP

The Federal Government’s plans to let allied health and nurses take on more tasks from GPs would be a good step towards fixing the difficult situation Geraldton doctors are in, but it wouldn’t be the full solution to the crisis the sector is facing, a leading Geraldton GP has said.

The Government announced this week it intends to bring a number of changes to the healthcare system including expanding the range of services professionals such as allied health, pharmacists and nurses can offer under Medicare.

Dr Ian Taylor, chairman of the Midwest GP Network, said allowing allied health and nursing professionals to take on more tasks in general practice will relieve some of the burden on GPs.

“It means GPs won’t be looking over the shoulder all the time, which is very time consuming,” he said.

“It frees time so GPs can look at more important things.”

Dr Taylor said general practice in Geraldton was suffering due to a lack of funding from Medicare rebates, to the point where no trainee GPs were brought to the city in the last year. And the lack of Medicare rebates was discouraging many GPs from bulk billing, he said.

“The Medicare rebate is about half of what it should be, while our costs have gone through the roof,” Dr Taylor said.

The reforms are positive step towards addressing stress on the system he said, but the government also needed to increase funding.

“General practice is in absolute crisis at the moment, the main reason is because we just can’t get doctors to go into general practice. They see it as underpaid, undervalued, with no respect or status,” he said.

Dr Taylor said he was also concerned the reforms would mean pharmacists would be involved in diagnosis and treatment without adequate training.