AMA President Dr Danielle McMullen provides an update on the past week at the national AMA.
Hello, and happy Friday,
It's been a whirlwind week in Canberra with the government's federal budget handed down on Tuesday night. As is tradition for the AMA president, I was in Parliament House along with some of our brilliant staff to analyse and provide comment on the health commitments in the budget.
There were no real surprises following several pre-budget announcements. We saw some big investments in primary care and our healthcare workforce, with $8.5 billion earmarked for Medicare (our detailed run-down of this I've shared previously) and GP workforce, as well as solid investments in women's health. This kind of money is of course very welcome. But there are some glaring issues and omissions which we need to confront, namely the big "R' issue of reform.
Reform is needed right across our healthcare system if it is to keep pace with the needs of modern Australia and the complexity of care needed to keep Australians well. Medicare has barely changed it structure since inception 40 years ago - medicine has certainly changed! We need to Modernise Medicare. We need to look at implementing a new seven-tier GP consultation item structure which would support our patients to spend more time with their GP for ongoing care which will keep them well and out of hospital.
We need a new independent workforce planning agency to make sure we have healthcare workers where they are needed right across the country. An agency which can collect the right data and then use that to ensure we have doctors being trained and distributed to where they need to be.
We need state and territory governments to sit down with the federal government to sort out the mess that is our logjammed public hospitals , and this means sorting out the new National Health Reform Agreement. It's no use committing money to hospitals when disagreement means it is going nowhere, while patients are stuck in EDs, ramped in ambulances, and waiting to be moved through the system due to hospital exit block.
We need to see real reform to private health and I can't think of anything more important than a private health system authority to oversee this sector. An independent authority could make sure patients are seeing private health insurance as a valuable, important part of their healthcare. An authority can make sure insurers don't overreach and begin limiting choice or clinical autonomy. If private health is to remain an essential part of our healthcare system then it needs oversight, and it needs it very soon.
The other missed opportunity is the inaction on a tax on sugary drinks . We will continue to advocate for this simple measure which could seriously reduce obesity-related illness, which has become such a huge cost to the healthcare system. While fizzy drink manufacturers get rich selling sugary swill to our children, our healthcare system - and our tax dollars - are swallowed up trying to deal with remedying the effects of these drinks.
We issued a call this week for people to get their flu shots with a potential horror flu season looming, especially if the Northern Hemisphere's flu season is anything to go by. We're seeing a perfect storm of vaccine complacency, vaccine misinformation and the irrational fears stoked by the people peddling this nonsense, and a high number of hospitalisations and death.
Our GPs will be starting to see supplies beginning to arrive by now, and again I just want to offer my thanks to you at the frontline who are delivering these vaccines, on top of already-packed clinical schedules.
Your VP Associate Professor Julian Rait has been in Hobart working hard on solutions to the maternity ward closuresand this again serves as a reminder of the importance of sorting out the private health system. It's so important to ensure women can access the high-quality care they deserve and need. They should not be facing avoidable uncertainty and fear at an already stressful time. We know these types of closures impact a huge array of members including obstetricians, paediatricians and anaesthetists, as well as GPs and many others. We continue to work not just in Hobart, but across the country to strengthen private maternity care and private care more broadly.
We also met with the college of psychiatrists this week, along with AMA NSW, to talk about the ongoing issues with psychiatry in NSW. We're determined to ensure our trainee doctors are fully supported throughout this time, as well as the psychiatry workforce more broadly. We remain committed to seeing mental healthcare resourced appropriately.
