Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My questions relate to the Minister for Health and Ageing, but first I want to thank the Minister for Ageing for coming to my electorate and visiting the Cabanda aged-care facility, where the government gave $1.5 million. It is one of the biggest private employers in its area just west of Ipswich. Based in Rosewood, it is a community aged-care facility. I just want to congratulate it for achieving the funding. Also, I think that when the Minister for Ageing visited she saw the Milford Grange project. We gave an interest-free loan to RSL Queensland to undertake that near Bremer State High School in Ipswich. I think we met one of the project managers, who was actually living in the next suburb from that particular project.

My question relates to GP training places and also the GP superclinic in Ipswich. Just before the last election, Minister, you came to Ipswich and you and I stood outside the Ipswich General Hospital and announced that there would be a GP superclinic in Ipswich—I think one of 31 rolled out across the country. This is really important in my electorate. In 2005-06 the Ipswich and West Moreton Division of General Practice commissioned—I think with the University of Adelaide—a study concerning medical services in the Ipswich and West Moreton area. At that stage Ipswich’s population was about 150,000 people, and of course it services not just Ipswich but the Lockyer Valley, the Somerset region and the Boonah part of the Scenic Rim. At that stage, the study showed that one in three GPs would retire within 10 years and that there were many GPs over 70 years of age. It also showed that there was one GP for every 1,609 people in the Ipswich and West Moreton area, and that is going to be worse because Ipswich’s population is the fastest-growing in Queensland; it grew by 4.1 per cent last year according to the ABS figures. So the problem is becoming more acute and people are asking me questions about training places for doctors. Also, when can we expect the Ipswich GP superclinic to be rolled out?

See this speech in context