Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the opportunity this morning to raise the concerns of many constituents in my electorate about the growing crisis in the provision of GP services in Throsby. For some years the population to GP ratio in my electorate has been in excess of the national and New South Wales average. I put some questions on notice to the minister, but in the most recent figures I could find there was in the electorate one full-time equivalent GP for 1,500 people, compared to the average in New South Wales of one GP for 1,383 people. When you look at the number of full-time GPs in my electorate, which in 2005 was 87, and compare that to the minister for health’s electorate with 103 full-time equivalent GPs, you can see that the community in the electorate I represent is being short-changed by the lack of adequate numbers of GPs to service a growing community.

The situation has been deteriorating locally, and I have had many complaints from the local community. In the past four weeks, four local GP practices have closed: two at Shellharbour Village, one in Albion Park and one at Warilla. It is unlikely that these practices will reopen. Many of the remaining sole practices in my area rely on GPs who are nearing retirement age. So it is not just the loss of four local practices but the flow-on negative consequences this has for surrounding practices. For example, I was contacted late last week by the People’s Medical Centre at Warilla, where two part-time doctors advised me that they have had to close their books to any new patients. Other surrounding practices report that the pressures of trying to cope with extra patients have led to the only option available, and that is an extension of the hours of practice, putting a lot of strain on GPs.

The Shellharbour area has for some years been classified as a district of workforce shortage, which does permit overseas trained doctors to receive a Medicare provider number if they are sponsored by one of our local practices. Despite the acknowledgement that we are a district of workforce shortage, the situation is getting worse with no light at the end of the tunnel. The Minister for Health and Ageing should tell my community what practical measures are being put in place by the Howard government to recruit doctors to fill the GP vacancies in the Shellharbour area.