doctor shortage – Michmutters
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Australia

Female GPs say ‘inadequate’ Medicare rebates, pressure to bulk bill patients adds to emotional burn out

For two years, Sarah McLay has dipped into her personal savings, sacrificed a take-home wage and run her central Queensland medical practice at a loss of “several hundred thousand dollars”.

Regardless of the hours Dr McLay worked or the patients she saw, the numbers did not stack up.

“We were really subsidizing the public’s health care,” Dr McLay said.

“Nothing is ever truly free. Everything costs someone something.”

Most patients probably don’t think about the finances of a medical clinic — and that’s provided you can get into the waiting room in the first place.

Yet financial strain is part of a hidden toll that Dr McLay and other general practitioners say is disproportionately affecting women and adding to skills shortages as burnt-out doctors leave the profession.

A financial and emotional gender disparity has emerged because female GPs tended to see more patients needing longer consultations.

A woman with mid-length brown hair smiles at the camera, she is wearing a stethoscope around her neck.
Dr McLay says Clermont will have no permanent doctor if she was forced to close her clinic.(Supplied)

“Yes, I did medicine because I wanted to help people, but I can’t change the reality that our Medicare rebate is actually completely inadequate to pay our bills,” Dr McLay said.

“I can’t keep sacrificing and suffering because the government doesn’t value what we do.”

Short appointments more lucrative

General practitioners across the board have reported struggling to provide care with Medicare rebates that have not increased with inflation.

Louise Stone, a Canberra GP and medical educator said short consultations received a higher rebate per minute than longer appointments.

Dr Stone said she would “earn four times as much” doing back-to-back vaccination appointments than a 40-minute consult for someone with mental health or chronic physical conditions.

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Categories
Australia

More than half of regional Australians are not seeking medical help for chronic pain due to isolation, survey finds

The 360-kilometre drive Paul Klotz has to make to get medical help for his chronic pain is “like torture”, according to the chronic pain sufferer.

He has issues with his back, which makes sitting in a car extremely difficult.

But it is just one part of his long and complicated medical history that means he regularly needs to travel from his home in Bundaberg, in Queensland, to get help.

He had a heart attack 20 years ago, a stroke seven years ago, he has epilepsy functional neurological disorder, and he had a bit of his bowel removed just before Christmas.

But getting treated for his chronic pain has been a long, slow and painful journey, as he said there were no appropriate medical services in his home town.

“To be honest, and to be blunt, they’re non-existent,” he said.

“The GPs do the best they can, but for cardiologists, oncologists, dermatologists, neurosurgeons, and neurologists, I have to get to Brisbane to see those.

A bearded man in a darkened room.
Paul Klotz says many chronic pain sufferers cannot work full time and do not have the money to pursue medical help.(ABC Wide Bay: Brad Marsellos)

“The expectation for me to sit in the car for six hours’ drive for a short appointment down there, and then have to face six hours coming back, it’s torture, pure torture.”

The ever-increasing cost of fuel and the regular need for accommodation is also a huge financial ask to cover for the disability pensioner.

Chronic pain sufferers going without food, medical treatment

Mr Klotz’s willingness to travel from regional Australia to a big city to seek medical help puts him in the minority, according to a new survey from the not-for-profit group Chronic Pain Australia.

President Fiona Hodson said the organisation’s annual survey showed that 53 per cent of chronic pain sufferers in regional Australia were not getting the medical help they needed due to their location.

Chronic Pain Australia president Fiona Hodson.
Fiona Hodson says it is alarming that regional pain sufferers are not getting the medical help they need.(Supplied)

“It is quite alarming that there are that many people who are unable to access these services,” she said.

Ms Hodson said the lack of services often led people to self-medicate, and the recent survey of 1,500 chronic pain sufferers showed 48 per cent used alcohol to self-medicate.

That figure was 28 per cent for cigarettes and 26 per cent for non-medically prescribed cannabis.

Ms Hodson said the survey also showed that 70 per cent of chronic pain sufferers had gone without food in order to continue treating their condition, and 55 per cent said they had not been able to see a specialist due to the cost.

Having private health insurance did not seem to help either, as 65 per cent of respondents with policies said they were still going without food and fuel to get treatment.

“Health services and treatment options, which are inaccessible due to remoteness and also unaffordable for many, can force people living with chronic pain to seek out unsafe ways to manage and cope with their pain,” Ms Hodson said.

“Many don’t feel like they have a choice.”

The Rural Doctors Association of Australia said more money was needed to attract doctors to regional Australia.

President Megan Belot urged the federal government to bring back a Medicare rebate for GP-facilitated specialist appointments, saying it was lost in a change from emergency COVID measures.

“In rural settings, the local doctor is usually the ongoing care provider, so we need these GP-facilitated consultations to help the local team manage the patient’s condition in accordance with the advice from the consultant specialist,” Dr Belot said.

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