CQ doctor calls out lack of allied health services

Doctor raises concerns: “We project an increasing demand for medical services, not only for GPs but the services of our nursing staff, chronic disease management, and psychological services.”

Residents of a major regional town have been crying out for more specialist health services so they aren’t forced to drive almost 300km to their nearest city for care.

Emerald Medical Group GP Dr Ewen McPhee said people in rural communities missed out on allied health professionals, and they often had long waiting lists.

“While we focus on the significant GP workforce shortage, it’s a team, people need a lot of care from a lot of different professionals that those in the city take for granted,” Dr McPhee said.

“We project an increasing demand for medical services, not only for GPs but the services of our nursing staff, chronic disease management, and psychological services.

“We have a significant number of people who require disability services, particularly our young kids.

“There’s a cohort of kids that really need speech therapy and occupational therapy to help them live and grow and be their best selves.”

He said people in Emerald could wait up to six months to see a psychologist, which was one of the town’s key needs.

Local Terry Short said Emerald was a very optimistic town and would continue to grow, but it needed to be supported by better health services.

“If you’ve got any sort of mild health issue with children, [driving to the cities] takes you away from town,” Mr Short said.

“You’re forever going to Rockhampton or Brisbane, and it’s not cheap to fly out of Emerald.

“We need all sorts of doctors here in Emerald; good experienced country GPs and young training doctors who want to stay in the bush.”

Mr Short said the town needed facilities for young medical professionals to work locally within the Central Highlands.

(From left) Matt Burnett, Murray Watt, Dr Ewan McPhee PHOTO: Contributed

The town is in the key battleground seat of Flynn, hotly contested between Gladstone’s Labor mayor Matt Burnett and the LNP’s candidate Colin Boyce, who currently holds a state seat centred on Biloela and Chinchilla.

It is a three-hour drive to Rockhampton, six and a half-hour drive to Townsville and nine and a half-hour drive to Brisbane on a road that’s only now being sealed.

And yet, Emerald has a population of more than 14,000 people.

The Flynn electorate has the second lowest number of GPs per person of any Queensland federal electorate.

Labor Senator Murray Watt and Mr Burnett visited the Emerald Medical Group clinic on November 22 and heard that a lack of training places for allied health students also meant an ongoing shortage of trained health care professionals in the region.

“They’re talking about services such as speech pathology, occupational therapy and physiotherapy,” Mr Burnett said.

“Our hardworking rural communities deserve the same world class health care as those in the city.

“It’s terrible to hear these desperate locals having to travel more than 250 kilometres to access the kind of services that city residents take for granted.

“The quality of health care for people in Emerald should be based on their Medicare card, not their credit card.”

Labor Senator Murray Watt claimed the Morrison Government was failing the regions.

“Access to quality health care across Central Queensland has gotten so much worse under the LNP. It’s just not good enough,” Senator Watt said.

“The LNP has taken regions like Central Queensland for granted.

“Eight long years of the LNP in Canberra have seen health services go down and health costs go up.

“Our rural health services could get even worse, if we see COVID outbreaks once borders reopen.”

DonateLife Week. Hon. Dr David Gillespie MP, Federal Member for Lyne, NSW, The Nationals. Official portrait. Parliament House, Canberra. 8 July 2021, 46th Parliament. Picture: David Foote

Federal regional health Minister Dr David Gillespie said an application to create a University Department of Rural Health in Central Queensland was under consideration by the department, which would support training in allied health.

“The problem we face is that too many GPs and specialists are bedded down in the bright lights of capital cities, aided by the metro-centric focused training of specialists required by the colleges, and the metro centric employment and placement of interns, residents and registrars in metropolitan public hospitals rather than regional and rural hospitals,” Dr Gillespie said.

“The Federal Government is supporting the training of non-GP specialists in areas like Emerald through the Specialist Training Program.

“The STP has made significant progress towards increasing specialist medical training in expanded settings in recent years, particularly with the introduction of rural targets for each of the 13 participating medical specialist colleges.

“The STP program has increased the proportion of training delivered in regional, rural and remote areas from 309 full time equivalent funded training posts in 2018, to 413 FTE funded training posts in 2021.

“The STP Integrated Rural Training Pipeline has provided a further 93 funded rural posts in 2021.”

Dr Gillespie denies any funding cuts have been made to Queensland Government hospitals, saying an extra $6 billion has been added on top of hospital funding.

“Funding to the QLD Government under the National Health Reform Agreement (NHRA) is provided on an activity basis. This means that as demand for hospital services increases, Commonwealth funding also increases,” he said.

A Labor spokesman said the party would announce its election policies ‘well before’ the next election.

“It is vitally important to hear the real-life experiences of Australians as concerns around the affordability of healthcare are being considered in the context of our policy development process,” he said.