Lack of funds after Gayle Woodford APY murder a ‘scandal’, says GP

One of the last doctors to see murdered outback nurse Gayle Woodford alive says a local scandal has erupted over the funds supposed to prevent a repeat of the outrage.

Lack of funding to prevent a repeat of the brutal kidnapping, rape and murder of nurse Gayle Woodford in South Australia’s remote APY Lands in 2016 has turned into a “scandal” says the GP who was one of the last to see her.

Dr Martin Kelly of the Nganampa Health Council told a Senate hearing into GP shortages in regional and remote areas being held in Whyalla on Tuesday that funding for clinical services was now being diverted to try to ensure healthcare workers be accompanied for after-hours or unscheduled call outs.

Mrs Woodford’s murder after she responded to a call for help shocked the nation and prompted the 2017 passage of “Gayle’s Law” which requires a support worker on such calls.

Mrs Woodford’s killer Dudley Davey was jailed for life.

Dr Kelly – his voice choking with emotion as he recounted the murder of his friend and his support of her family as a search found her body in a shallow grave near Fregon – said initial federal money for support workers was later rolled into the health service’s overall budget.

A request for more funding was then made contingent on a review which he described as a “joke.”

Gayle Woodford. Picture: Supplied by family

SA Senator Rex Patrick. Picture: Matt Turner.

Two review members spent just two and a half hours on the ground in the APY Lands including driving time from airstrips and only visited two of the service’s seven clinics, the hearing was told.

The health service’s executive director John Singer, an Indigenous elder who has been the executive director for 20 years, had planned meetings repeatedly postponed and finally opted to miss a family member’s funeral so he could drive to Alice Springs where the review members were staying before they flew out the next day.

“The initial appointment was postponed until 6pm, it was held in the casino where these people were staying and it was held on the gaming floor, when John arrived they had already had their first round of drinks,” Dr Kelly said.

“I don’t mind a drink, I’m not a wowser, but I think we deserved a decent review because of what was hanging on this.

“The report was a joke.”

Dr Kelly said while the review members may have examined documents in their offices, their trip to the APY Lands to see the clinics at work was a “token visit” and there was still not enough money to ensure remote after-hours calls are done by two people.

Rapist and murderer Dudley Davey. Picture: 7 News

“There has been inadequate funding (for the support workers) and I believe it is a scandal,” he said.

Dr Kelly said approaches to the state government for funding was told it hinged on the federal review which has not been finalised.

In a voice committee members later described as “thick with emotion and care” Dr Kelly, 64 – who has worked in the APY Lands for almost four decades and knows most residents where the median age is 21 – said there had been some federal funding for the program but not enough, and the workload continues to rise.

“The system is stretched beyond what is reasonable and we are being asked to do more and more,” he said.

While telehealth has a role, he noted sometimes you need to be able to put a stethoscope to a chest, and sometimes “you need to hold people’s hands as well.”

Other witnesses gave evidence on the state of GP shortages across SA including the warning that the market is being twisted due to locums being able to make a GP’s annual salary in just three months – and that it is partly a legacy of the former state Labor government’s “unofficial policy’ to close small rural hospitals in favour of centralising care.