Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak with respect to local health service concerns being felt throughout the Mayo community, and at the top of the list is access to a GP. Critical GP shortages and the failure of the Medicare rebate to keep up with the costs of providing services are raised with me constantly. Regional communities are already experiencing GP closures and reduced services, and those GPs who remain have all but ceased bulk-billing, even for their most vulnerable patients. My team spoke with a constituent who lives with rheumatoid arthritis. She says that she goes back to her doctor every five days to get a new prescription for pain medication, costing her more than $60 per visit just to get a repeat prescription. This is causing significant financial distress to her. People with ongoing health concerns and those on pensions are being forced to choose which condition they can afford to get treated and whether to visit their GP for the medication they need or to pay their bills.

I've met with the Minister for Health and Aged Care and request that the minister take urgent action to address this issue. In particular, I urge the government, once the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce delivers its recommendations in a few weeks, to work with the sector to better encourage and enable GPs to bulk-bill. There are no quick fixes; we all know that. But increased Medicare rebates and indexing GP items using appropriate pricing processes would help, and we need to act quickly.

My community—in fact, the entire community of South Australia—is also in desperate need of the Flinders Medical Centre Kidney Health Registry. This should be national, to assist with monitoring the quality of care and development of better healthcare policies for those with kidney disease. Most importantly, the registry would be patient focused, enabling patients and their families to share their experiences, not just purely to record clinical data. Recently, the member for Boothby and I met with the minister for health and the team at the kidney registry to talk about this very exciting proposal. I hope that the government will support this.

My electorate of Mayo has the oldest demographic—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 13 : 06 to 13 : 15

My electorate of Mayo has the oldest demographic of any federal electorate in South Australia and is among the top 10 oldest in the nation. So imagine my surprise when I became aware that there were going to be eight aged-care service offices for Services Australia deployed across South Australia, none was going to be deployed in Mayo—even in Victor Harbour, which has a median age of over 60 years. I was deeply concerned about this, and went and met with the Minister for Government Services and said, 'Look, we really need one of these offices in South Australia in my electorate of Mayo.' I'm very thankful that the minister listened and heard my pleas, and an officer will be deployed to the Victor Harbour region around January this year. My understanding is that they're undertaking the recruitment now.

It is going to be a real game changer for the people of Victor Harbour, Goolwa and right across our south coast to have an aged-care services officer to support communities sitting within Services Australia. I say that because many older Australians find entering Centrelink, and trying to deal with Centrelink and My Aged Care, incredibly complex, particularly if they do not have computer skills. Many older Australians managed to go through their whole career without needing to turn on a computer. This assumption that we would have for that generation to equip themselves and have those skills now is, I think, incredibly unrealistic. I'm very pleased that the minister listened to me and heard the pleas of my community, and that the implementation of that aged-care services officer will be with us in Mayo in the new year.

There is so much to talk about when it comes to health. One thing I will say, and I've known this since the day I was elected, is that health is the most important issue in my community and the most important policy area. I look forward to continuing to work with government and to also talk fearlessly in the parliament about the great needs that we have in Mayo to ensure that we have a healthy and vibrant community.