Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have raised the issue of GP shortages in Adelaide’s inner metropolitan areas in this parliament before, but there are now indications that the situation is rapidly worsening and becoming a critical problem in Adelaide’s inner north. Since September this year, the inner metropolitan suburb of Kilburn, which has a population of around 4,500 residents, has lost every one of its local GPs. The final doctor moved out of the area last month, resulting in every one of his patients having to register elsewhere—and some are still reporting to me today that they have been unable to find an alternative local GP to take them on.

My constituents in this suburb, many of whom are not wealthy, now have to walk or catch a bus out of Kilburn to visit a GP. For those with poor mobility, the elderly and those with long-term critical health conditions, this situation is extremely difficult to bear. Compounding this problem, last week I was made aware that the surgery in the next suburb over, Prospect, will be winding-up operations by Christmas, taking three more GPs from the broader area. Make no mistake: this will be a significant blow for the people of Kilburn and the inner north.

Where will these people go? The nearest practice, one kilometre out of Kilburn, on Prospect Road, tells me their books are full and they cannot take on new patients. I am told the doctors’ books on Main North Road, two kilometres out of Kilburn, are nearly at capacity—and this is before the closure of the surgery in Prospect.

Seeing through the government’s spin on the GP crisis can be difficult, but people who live in these suburbs confront the reality daily. I have previously raised in the House the issue of Nailsworth surgery, in a nearby suburb, which could not attract a local GP to join the practice. The practice had approached an overseas-trained doctor who was ready, keen and willing to work, but the government, in what was revealed to be an unofficial policy, refused to provide the GP with a Medicare provider number simply because the area was inner metropolitan and therefore could not be an area of workforce shortage.

I advise the House that, as a result of this government’s conviction that the inner northern suburbs are adequately supplied with doctors, Nailsworth has now had to reduce the number of consultation hours it can provide each week because the doctors simply cannot cope with the demand without an additional GP. This is the reality.

The government was told about this situation—a doctor was ready and willing to work at the practice. But the Howard government knows that, if it were to admit that there is a serious problem in the inner north of Adelaide, it would be admitting that the ill-informed policies it has implemented since coming to government have brought about a crisis in GP numbers that is crippling not just our regions and outer metropolitan areas but also the very hearts of our capital cities.

What is most appalling is that the crisis we face, which is now being denied and neglected by this government, was created by the Howard government in the first place. The government’s ill-conceived policies of cutting the number of GP training places has left Australia with a significant doctor shortage that worsens each year.

The situation in Adelaide’s inner north needs to be urgently addressed. We must not let what has happened at Nailsworth be repeated across the district. The remaining GPs in these suburbs are doing it tough and they need support in order to remain viable. This government must not stand in their way. I call on them to look seriously at the situation in Kilburn and the inner northern suburbs of Adelaide and to urgently declare the area a district of workforce shortage so that, to avert a crisis, we can ensure that the surgeries that do remain in the area can operate effectively—with access to overseas trained doctors when there are no local GPs to fill the vacancies. These are the measures that must be implemented now. But more needs to be done to prepare for the future.

The Australian Labor Party are committed to investing in more doctors and nurses. We are committed to working together with our state and territory governments to address these crucial issues. At the last election Labor promised to invest $1.5 billion to build Australia’s healthcare workforce. These are the sorts of progressive measures that we need to take into Australia’s future to ensure that this fundamental issue is addressed. We need the Howard government to get its head out of the sand and to act now to support the local residents in my community, and local residents in communities all across Australia, who are constantly struggling with this crippling doctor shortage.