Tireless GP named new Rural Doctors Association of Australia chief

A well-known Queensland GP obstetrician will be sworn in as the new president of the Rural Doctors Association of Australia this week.

ONE of the nation’s most passionate maternity services advocates and one of the key drivers of The Sunday Mail’s successful Bush Baby Crisis campaign will be sworn in as the new president of the Rural Doctors Association of Australia this week at the Rural Medicine Australia conference on the Gold Coast.

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Dr John Hall is the new RDAA president.

Dr John Hall is a GP obstetrician and the sole owner and managing director of a GP group practice on the Darling Downs. The practice employs 20 doctors across Oakey, Kingsthorpe and Toowoomba.

In between delivering babies, the GP obstetrician is very active in the medico-political space. The local communities are the drive behind his passion. He is a man of the people and is known to work tirelessly to bring them the best healthcare.

Dr Hall will join record numbers of almost 900 rural doctors, medical students and rural health stakeholders at the conference to discuss issues such as mental healthcare, maternity services, palliative care, pain management, recruiting and retaining more junior doctors in rural communities, caring for refugees with chronic health issues and domestic violence in rural communities.

The conference is co-hosted by the RDAA and the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine and speakers include Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles, Federal Minister for Regional Services Mark Coulton and Federal Opposition spokesman on health Chris Bowen.

Dr Hall served as RDAQ president in 2008, RDAA vice- president from 2014 to 2017 and became president- elect last year. He was a founding member of the Queensland Rural Generalist Pathway team and he plans to prioritise the progression of the National Rural Generalist Pathway in his new role.

“The Federal Government has already committed $62 million to the rollout of a national scheme thanks to good work by the RDAA but it has to be delivered,” Dr Hall said.

Protecting, strengthening and reopening rural maternity units is another one of his key areas of focus for his presidency.

“Maternity often holds a community together. When these obstetric services are lost we see a downgrade of services generally. The operating theatres become idle and it is hard to justify keeping them up and running. When you lose doctors and surgical services then emergency response is impacted. It is a flow-on effect,” he said.

“It makes no economic sense to substitute local care by using helicopters to fly people to the city and it simply displaces them from their homes,” he said.

Dr Hall graduated from the University of Queensland in 2000 and completed his junior doctor years in Rockhampton and Mackay, achieving an advanced diploma in obstetrics in 2003. He began his rural medical career in Stanthorpe, working as a rural generalist, GP obstetrician, and completed his dual fellowships as well as a diploma in skin cancer medicine.

Dr Hall then moved to Oakey to become the medical superintendent at the Oakey Hospital.