Grey MP Rowan Ramsey says Medicare subsidies for doctors should be restricted to rural areas

DOCTORS wanting to establish Medicare-funded practices in South Australia would be restricted to rural areas to aid chronic shortages, under a push by Federal MP Rowan Ramsey.

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DOCTORS wanting to establish taxpayer-funded practices in South Australia would be restricted to rural areas to aid chronic shortages, under a push by Federal MP Rowan Ramsey.

Mr Ramsey holds the seat of Grey, the state’s largest and most regional electorate, and says the need for general practitioners remained at crisis levels across the state and that no additional incentives would entice them.

“These are very well rewarded positions and with communities that will really extend a hand of friendship to doctors and yet we can’t fill the positions,” Mr Ramsey said.

“In the end, we are going to have to restrict where they practice to avoid over servicing in the cities and in that case they will get their start in the country.”

He is proposing that Medicare provider numbers — used to claim taxpayer-funded benefits — for doctors establishing new practices be limited to postcodes desperate for services.

Mr Ramsey first called for Medicare numbers to be postcode specific in 2013 reasoning doctors should “not be able to access taxpayer subsidies to assist them in making what are essentially lifestyle decisions”.

Five years on, he said people still don’t believe there is a problem in the country.

“On the other side of the table, we are starting to see the first signs of over servicing in the city as the doctor numbers build,” he said.

Rowan Ramsey says the need for general practitioners remained at crisis levels across the state.

Mr Ramsey, in a paper given to federal ministers about the issue, says “the government has some bargaining tools” and that a lift to the Medicare rebates freeze would provide the “ideal time to negotiate some new rules”.

More than 60 positions for full and part-time general practitioners and obstetricians were advertised yesterday on the Rural Doctors Workforce Agency SA website. The agency will soon launch a campaign to get doctors to towns including Streaky Bay and Kimba but a spokesman said it “did not support conscription”.

The Rural Doctors Association of SA president Peter Rischbeth said postcode specific Medicare provider numbers was a “controversial area” and opposed by metropolitan doctors.

“It would be a restriction of practice conditions for a some people,” Mr Rischbeth said.

“It is probably not the best proposal at this stage.”

The State Government has funded an additional seven junior doctor internships at hospitals in Whyalla and Mt Gambier from 2019, however they will not aid the shortage for another five years.

The Australian Medical Association does not support the geographic allocation of Medicare provider numbers or other coercive schemes that it says restrict “the right of doctors to choose their preferred practice location”.

The Advertiser this month reported that Eastern Eyre Health Advisory Board Dean Johnson had quit over his frustration at the lack of State Government response to help the rural doctors shortage.

Originally published as Grey MP Rowan Ramsey says Medicare subsidies for doctors should be restricted to rural areas