Bush doctors dudded by General Practice Rural Incentive program if they live on the wrong side of the track or creek

EXCLUSIVE: Bush doctors are getting only half the government incentives for working in an isolated town, because of where their surgeries are located.

BUSH doctors are getting only half the government incentives for working in an isolated town they should because their surgeries are on the wrong side of the railway track or creek.

The pitfalls of the federal government’s $113 million General Practice Rural Incentive Program is leaving bush towns without doctors and exacerbating the rural health crisis.

Dr Rick Newton whose surgery in the New South Wales town of Tullamore is located near the hospital has his potential $28,000 government incentive payment almost halved because this precise spot is classified as less remote than an area on the other side of the railway track.

Dr Newton said he lived 100 kilometres from Parkes, population 12,000, “and they get the same incentive as I do in a town of 300”.

“Across the railway line from me is RA category 4 and the subsidy goes from $18,000 to $28,000,” he said.

“The rural incentive is not the reason I’m here or staying here but it's a recognition that doctors living here are making some sort of sacrifice and they are given a token reward,” he said.

It was “definitely” time for the incentives to be fixed, Dr Newton said.

“They’ve been talking about fixing it for three years and all the inquiries say it needs to be fixed,” he said.

News Corp has identified dozens of other bush towns across Australia that are penalised by the flawed government incentive scheme which a Senate report and a government inquiry have called to be overhauled.

BUSH PATIENTS: Die three years earlier

Dudded ... Dr Rick Newton could nearly double his government rural practice incentive payments if he moved his surgery across the railway line. Picture News Corp Australia

The current Assistant Minister for Health Fiona Nash was a member of the Senate inquiry and promised doctors she’d fix the scheme before the election but has done nothing after more than a year in power.

The town of Hay in NSW is classified as attracting a $30,000 relocation incentive but a doctor who set up a surgery just outside the town could double their payment to $60,000.

Doctors working in Mackay in Queensland get $15,000 if they relocate to the town from a metropolitan area yet the town is surrounded by a region that attracts a $30,000 relocation grant.

Doctors who move to the town of Cherbourg in Queensland receive a $15,000 grant but if they set up a surgery on the other side of the creek that incentive payment would double to $30,000.

Not surprisingly the town has no permanent GP and doctors work in the nearby town of Murgon where the incentive payments are higher even though the population is larger than Cherbourg.

In South Australia the town of Roxby Downs is an island that attracts a relocation grant of $60,000 but is surrounded by an area that attracts relocation grants of $120,000.

Roxby Downs GP Dr Simon Lockwood says if he moved 30 kilometres down the road to the town of Andamooka he could nearly double his government incentive payments.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” he told News Corp.

could be earning more ... Roxby Downs Doctor Dr Simon Lockwood.

The scheme pays doctors an incentive according to how far they live from a city.

“The algorithm was created by boffins at a university and assumes if you’ve got a population of 3,000 people you’ll have a hospital emergency department, visiting specialists and that it will be much easier to practice but if fact we don’t have any of those things so it makes no sense,” Dr Lockwood said.

Dr Lockwood says he loves working in the country but the way the scheme works makes it more difficult to attract new doctors to the bush.

A spokeswoman for Senator Nash said the Government is committed to looking at options to better target health workforce incentives to communities most in need.

This includes consideration of an alternative classification system for the delivery of health workforce incentives, such as the General Practice Rural Incentives Programme. the spokeswoman said.

The Department of Health is currently investigating different models and undertaking rigorous testing to identify and resolve potential issues, the spokeswoman said.

President Rural Doctors Association Australia Dr Ian Kamerman said the rural classification system was produced by the previous government and his association had been extremely vocal about the problems with it.

Wanting change ... Dr Ian Kamerman, President of the Rural Doctors Association of Australia. Picture: www.brookemi

“We are extremely disappointed after more than a year in government this inequitable system hasn’t been changed to meet the research and evidence around where rural incentives should be provided,” he said.

“Given that many of the workforce program incentives and other funding systems are based on this rural classification scheme the first and highest priority of any government should be to modify it to meet the Australian community’s needs,” he said.

“The work has been done through the Mason Review, all the Minister needs to do is say ‘yes’,” he said.

In 2012-13, more than 12,770 payments were made under the program with 11,500 doctors and registrars paid annual retention grants but just 55 doctors were awarded relocation grants.