THE Rural Doctor’s Association of South Australia has urged parties contesting the state election to commit to urgently expand a state-based program designed to train and deliver much-needed rural generalist doctors to country communities.
The association has also warned that, while additional funding for country hospitals already announced by the SA Labor Party is welcome, it will not be enough to bring many country hospitals back from the brink of closure or service downgrades.
"Country SA needs many more rural generalist doctors on the ground, and fast," RDASA president Dr Peter Rischbieth said.
"Rural generalist doctors are the Swiss Army knife of medicine.
"They provide not only general practice care in their rural communities, but also advanced care — including at their local hospital — in areas like obstetrics, anaesthetics, general surgery, emergency medicine, paediatrics, geriatrics, palliative care, advanced mental health care and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health care.
"Qld has shown that a strong and well-trained rural generalist workforce actually saves the health system money, as there are fewer expensive aeromedical transfers and patients can be managed closer to home. This is good for the taxpayer and good for rural patients.
"Work is continuing apace on a National Rural Generalist Pathway to deliver more of the next generation of doctors with advanced skills to rural practice.
"While the SA Government has taken a few tentative steps towards implementing Rural Generalist training in this state, there has been little action in this regard.
"With a whole cohort of older country doctors now retiring, it is crucial that a new generation of rural generalist doctors are brought into country SA communities to replace them.
"The best way to do this is to take doctors who have completed their initial training in SA, and get them onto an SA-specific rural generalist training pathway that supports them to train in the advanced skills needed in rural SA medical practice.
"RDASA welcomes the $140 million in additional funding across 10 years that the SA Labor Party announced in January for the maintenance of country hospitals across the state, however this will need to be shared across more than 60 hospitals and aged care facilities.
"While any additional funding is of course welcome, many country hospitals across SA will need significantly more capital investment upfront to enable them to return to their full scope of service.
"Spreading this extra funding across 10 years will do little to enable these hospitals to be saved from downgrading or closure.
"Returning these hospitals to their full service level quickly — and staffing them with rural generalist doctors as part of a wider rural healthcare team — would not only result in much better access to local care for country patients, but it would also generate huge savings for the SA health budget as it would reduce the need for patient transfers and other costs.
"Unfortunately, rural hospitals in SA have consistently lost out when it comes to healthcare funding — much-needed funding has been siphoned from the rural health system to pay for new metropolitan health infrastructure like the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
"Now more than ever, rural communities across SA need to receive fair, consistent and equitable infrastructure support for their country hospitals and health services — many of which are showing the strain from years of consistent underfunding — and they also need a big boost to their future local health workforce.
"This state election provides the major parties with an excellent chance to get the country health system in SA on the mend."
