Petition calls for more full time regional North Queensland doctors

A petition for more full-time doctors in North Queensland is circulating and has the backing of the local state MP.

A petition to urgently employ more permanent doctors in regional North Queensland is gaining traction with more than 866 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon.

Cardwell woman Gabi Plumm began the petition which will be open until August 18 on the state parliament website.

“I’d like to go for 10,000 signatures, but I don’t know how we’ll do that. But even if we could get a couple thousand signatures it will speak loudly of the requirements that we have here,” Ms Plumm said.

To perhaps entice doctors to the region, Ms Plumm said Cardwell was a charming place.

Of the 33 petitions tabled to parliament this year, eight attracted more than 2000 signatories. Four petitions garnered between 1000 and 2000 signatures.

Despite being available to sign electronically and in hard copy, in Queensland a signatory cannot sign the same petition twice. Generic photo. Photo: Robyne Cuerel / Fraser Coast Chronicle

The wording of Plumm’s petition is a call for more “full-time doctors in rural medical practices including but not limited to Cardwell, Ingham, Tully and Mission Beach”.

Hinchinbrook MP Nick Dametto has sponsored the bill. There are full-time GP practices in the four towns mentioned in the petition.

In the 2022/23 state budget, the government committed $9.7 billion for new hospitals at Bundaberg, Toowoomba and Coomera and hospital expansions at Cairns, Townsville, Robina, Mackay, Redcliffe, Ipswich and Hervey Bay.

Since 2002, two petitions have been presented to parliament with more than 100,000 signatures. They were both in 2009, and both protested increases to vehicle registration costs.

The petition can be signed at the Hinchinbrook electorate office in Ingham or online.

Originally published as Petition calls for more full time regional North Queensland doctors