Cairns doctor says reputation of GPs putting pressure on health network

Far Northern residents waiting weeks for a GP appointment have been warned their agony could rise if a crucial training program is scrapped.

A FAR Northern doctor has warned a shortage of students wanting to pursue a career in general practice is damaging the healthcare network and leaving patients with long waits.

With the region gearing up for the state’s reopening in December, our frontline services of GPs and the hospital are feeling the strain.

Since the start of 2020, Cairns Hospital had reported 16 Code Yellows due to capacity issues, and in 2021 it had an average of 220-240 people present to the ED each day.

Meanwhile, residents at the Atherton Tablelands are reporting waiting times of up to four weeks to get in with a doctor.

It comes as the Cairns Central Plaza Doctors on McLeod St issued a statement on its website notifying patients of its permanent closure. Management at the practice’s sister clinic at Smithfield could not be reached for comment and its parent company Fullerton Health did not respond to a request for information on the closure.

Medical Students Kane Langdon, Nathan Kendal, Grace Gough, Matt Mo and Lachlan Joyce study onsite at the JCU Clinical School located alongside Cairns Hospital. Picture: Emily Barker.

Northern Queensland Primary Health Network chief executive Robin Whyte said the traditional models of small scale businesses and private practices that made up primary care in Australia were rapidly becoming unsustainable outside of metropolitan areas.

“An increasing number of rural practices are closing due to an inability to recruit new GPs. While we don’t formally collect any statistics around this, we are aware of five general practices that have closed within the Cairns region within the last 12 months,” Ms Whyte said.

Yorkeys Medical and James Cook University’s GP medical educator Dr Katie Williamson said Far Northern residents had the right to be frustrated by wait times.

“For regional centres like Cairns it means people are seeing different GPs at different practices because they can’t get in to see someone timely. We do know that people can’t always wait for their GP so they’re going to the emergency department and that is impacting on waiting times there,” she said.

“However, in more rural and remote locations, it means people aren’t getting to see a GP at all. Because they don’t have the luxury of driving 15kms down the road and seeing a different GP.”

With the region gearing up for the state’s reopening in December, our frontline services of GPs and the hospital are feeling the strain. Picture: Peter Carruthers

Dr Williamson said a major reason behind the shortage was the reputation of the GPs.

“Medical students are bright, they’re aspirational and they’re high achievers. They go through medical school and then they hear all this ‘why just be a GP when you could be brain surgeon,’ and it’s just not an aspirational career.”

She said 20 years ago up to 80 per cent of medical graduates would go into general practice, now that was down to about 12 per cent, except at JCU where about 50 per cent of students moved into the role.

Dr Williamson said JCU achieved that number by sending students to rural GPs “more than any other university” and exposing them to doctors passionate about their work.

But Dr Williamson said there were talks of scrapping the JCU training program to roll out a national program operated by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.

“That means the college based in Melbourne will be very urban centric in their training program … it doesn’t work for regional towns.”

North Queensland Labor senator Nita Green established a senate inquiry into the region’s GP shortage. Picture: Peter Carruthers

The region’s GP shortage has also been noted in parliament with submissions into Labor senator Nita Green’s senate inquiry closing on September 30.

“When I’m out and about in the community, people often tell me how hard it can be to get in to see a doctor,” Ms Green said.

“What we know is that our hospital system is also being crushed by the flow-on effect of having not enough primary health care or preventive health care.”

Originally published as Cairns doctor says reputation of GPs putting pressure on health network