Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the impact of the Abbott government's changes to the rural and remote area health classifications under the new modified Monash model. Under the changes, the town of Murwillumbah in my electorate of Richmond is now classified as MMM2, which attracts no incentive payments for medical practitioners, yet under the previous classification system Murwillumbah was classed RA2, which is inner-regional, and therefore attracted incentives.

This classification change will make it extremely difficult to attract new GPs to Murwillumbah as there are now no incentive payments for medical practitioners for this region. The fact is that the case load and workload for GPs in Murwillumbah is vastly different from that of many other rural and regional areas, which means that incentives are vitally necessary to attract GPs to this area. Given the significant negative health outcomes for the local community from the new model, I call on the health minister to act urgently to specifically exempt or reclassify Murwillumbah under the new modified Monash model system. I am calling on the health minister to urgently act on that.

I recently met with GPs from the Murwillumbah region, and they expressed concerns about the detrimental impact that this reclassification will have upon the entire area. It will be very difficult to attract GPs to an area with an ageing population and complex health needs. They have significant clinical requirements, and there are also more on-call areas as well. I call on the health minister to reclassify Murwillumbah under the new model. (Time expired)