Keep cap on vaccine GPs: medical groups

Australia’s peak medical associations have hit out at doctors threatening to quit the vaccination program and ­rejected suggestions that all GPs should be allowed to take part.

Australian Medical Association president Omar Khorshid. Picture: AAP

Australia’s peak medical associations have hit out at doctors threatening to quit the coronavirus vaccination program and ­rejected suggestions by NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard that all GPs should be allowed to take part in the program.

Mr Hazzard last week questioned why there were limits on the number of GPs who could ­administer the vaccine and suggested the program could be treated like a regular flu vaccination to speed up the process.

“I would be hopeful that we might revisit that question in the next few weeks and work with our federal colleagues to see if there are opportunities to broaden out the vaccination program so we can all choose our own GP rather than go to another GP that might have been endorsed through this earlier process,” Mr Hazzard said.

But the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) cautioned against any move to relax accreditation and training standards.

“Mandatory training is a part of that (accreditation process) so, you should only be receiving a vaccination from someone who’s completed the training,” RACGP president Karen Price said.

AMA president Omar Khorshid said: “At this stage we are comfortable with the accreditation process. There is no doubt general practices are used to providing vaccinations and can do so safely but this is a different vaccine.

“I think the government is very aware of the consequences of wastage or mistakes that might get made. We saw that very clearly demonstrated just a week or two ago when the patients in Queensland were administered four times the dose in a nursing home.

“How can you blame the government for wanting to maintain control and to ensure that everybody understands these vaccines are different? They are multi-dose vials; these are the processes you have to follow to ensure that they’re kept cold and they’re divided up appropriately. Some need dilution, some don’t.”

Both peak medical bodies were also worried by reports that some doctors planned to quit the vaccine program because of the limited scale of the rollout, and the low rates of payment for doctors: $31 for the first jab and $24 for the second.

Dr Khorshid said 4500 general practices had been approved “and that was in full knowledge of the financial offering from government”. He said the rate of pay was reasonable and one the AMA had negotiated hard with the government to achieve. “It’s not going to be a windfall gain for GPs; it’s not meant to be,” he said, but added it was up to each practice to make a decision on whether to take part.

Dr Price said threats by doctors to withdraw were “concerning because general practice does do most of the vaccinations normally so I think it would be a shame if doctors at this very ­beginning part, when there’s a few little hiccups moved away, ­because I just encourage doctors to stay the course.”

“I mean obviously Brad Hazzard has made some criticisms but I think that in all fairness, we’re at the very beginning of the general practice rollout. I think the numbers (of doses) that the GPs have received this week have been lower than they expected to get because there was this expectation that we’ll be rolling out mass vaccination clinics straight away.

“But I think that we’ve got to think this through, that there’s a supply chain issue with international supplies, that we’ve seen CSL isn’t quite yet ready to roll out their maximum production yet but they will they will get there.”

Dr Price said the program was a great opportunity for GPs to get their staff vaccinated, to test their own processes, make sure their own nurses were ready and to get the most vulnerable people vaccinated “in a slower, better and safer way”.

More than 4500 accredited general practices will take part in Phase 1b of the COVID-19 vaccine roll out, with 1000 commencing from the week of March 22 with a rapid scale up over the following four weeks.