President's email update - Monday 26 July

The Leaders’ Debate did nothing to reassure the Australian people that the major parties intend to have a serious conversation about fixing the health system that is currently failing Australian families. I firmly believe that voters are more concerned about being able to see a doctor, being able to have life-saving or life-enhancing surgery in a timely way, and not having to sit with sick children for hours in emergency departments than border security and stopping desperate people seeking a new life from the comfort of a leaky boat.
 
Prime Minister Gillard has inherited a significant health reform agenda.  She has to start talking about it and give us more detail about the implementation.  She must include doctors in the process.
 
Tony Abbott said ‘more beds’ twice during the debate.  He has to tell us how many, and when.  The Coalition must build on its strong mental health policy with a comprehensive health reform platform.
 
Health must feature more prominently in the rest of this campaign.  Otherwise, the Australian people will express their frustration with a vote against the party that has most ignored health policy.

Meanwhile, Labor today announced an investment in emergency departments.  See the AMA response to this announcement

Another big issue for the AMA, the medical profession, allied health providers and patients is Labor's proposed plan for care for people with diabetes.  The AMA opposes Labor's plan and we have asked the Prime Minister to revisit this policy should Labor win the election.  We think we have a better plan.

Read my blog and let the AMA know who you think has the best plan to care for people with diabetes.

The AMA will keep you up to date with health news throughout this election.

Yours sincerely

Dr Andrew Pesce
President

This week's Presidents Blog

You may have heard that the AMA has been highly critical of the Government’s proposed new plan for care for people with diabetes.

Their plan involves capped payments to general practices, it means patients are asked to forfeit their Medicare entitlements, and there is no guarantee that patients would always be under the care of their usual doctor.

We think there is a better way to provide this care.

The AMA plan calls for patients to have streamlined access to GP-referred allied health services and a range of other support services.

Our plan focuses on the patient’s clinical needs and ensures more support is available to patients who need it.

Our plan calls for better subsidies so that patients can more easily access the ‘other than GP’ services they need for the management of their ongoing conditions.

Our plan is for all patients with chronic conditions, not just people with diabetes.

We know our plan is better.  We have urged the Government to trial our plan against theirs to see which works best for patients.

I think we’d win. What do you think?

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