A national rural health strategy and childcare options for rural health workers should be top of mind for the federal government, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia says.
Childcare, training and planning – or rather, the lack of all three – are three of the biggest issues for the Rural Doctors Association of Australia coming into this federal election season.
In its official pre-election submission, the RDAA put forward what president Dr Raymond ‘RT’ Lewandowski III said were five “very modest requests” for rural and remote healthcare.
This included another 200 rural generalist training places – indeed, more modest than ACRRM’s request for 500 – as well as a national rural health strategy, a pilot program to subsidise commercial childcare facilities on hospital grounds, infrastructure grants for rural GPs and more incentives for rural non-GP specialists.
In particular, the rural doctor peak said its pitches focused on “delivering health care in ‘real rural’ communities”, which it defined as Modified Monash Model 3 regions and above.
“Investing in ‘real rural’ health provides benefits that extend beyond the local community; when rural and remote Australians receive care locally it reduces pressure on health services in larger regional towns,” the RDAA said.
Dr Lewandowski told The Medical Republic that a national rural health strategy, which the RDAA costed at around $5 million, was the core ask.
“We need a big-picture, long-term plan,” he said.
“With a lot of budget asks, we are asking to fix short-term and sometimes medium-term things or we’re trying to fix long-term things with something we think might work – but they don’t always integrate with what we ask for next year or what someone else asks for.”
Rural health can be a noisy space.
While ACRRM is the only medical college dedicated to producing rural doctors, the RACGP will often argue that it represents the majority of rural GPs.
And while the AMA represents the medical profession across specialties at both state and federal levels, so does the RDAA.
Then there are other peaks, like the National Rural Health Alliance, which support rural healthcare workers of all stripes, not to mention the Office of the National Rural Health Commissioner.
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According to Dr Lewandowski, the various different campaigns being run across the industry can often unintentionally undermine one another, hence the need for a broader strategy.
“[Initiatives that align with the] strategy should be budgeted and debated and discussed so that we do the right thing the first time, rather than doing the same thing 20 times or doing something different 20 times,” he said.
The RDAA isn’t alone in the call for a rural health strategy – it’s also a key ask from the National Rural Health Alliance, which costed its proposal at $1 billion over four years. This sum includes a rural health fund which would support the aims of the strategy.
Another proposal from the rural doctors’ association was $30 million for 10 childcare centres co-located on rural hospital grounds.
“The fact is, we have talked to our members, we’ve taken surveys, and … [often] either the location where they’re going to practice or the hours they’re going to practice … [are] dictated by the necessity of having childcare,” Dr Lewandowski said.
He acknowledged that the exact model would have to differ town-by-town, but said the funding could be used to cover set-up costs.
This year’s budget will fall on 25 March, rather than the traditional early May date, due to the federal election.
At time of writing, the election date has not been confirmed.
