Doorstop Interview Transcript - AMA Vice President Dr Choong-Siew Yong Discusses Health Workforce Issues
DR YONG: The AMA is concerned about the Productivity Commission asking Australians to accept a lower standard of health care. We have one of the best systems in the world now and if we take these sorts of proposals into account we may be looking at a much lower standard of care for Australians.
QUESTION: Looking specifically at these proposals though can you explain what your concerns are for instance with nurses taking over some of the roles of doctors…., as the best way to advance health, it is not the way to go. That in fact it would be hard to convince I think Australians that accepting a lower standard of health care from what they already enjoy now is the way forward.
We are certainly happy to work with governments in looking at ways in which we can increase that access and that affordability, and that's already happening I think at the grassroots level.
The Productivity Commission report smacks of an economist's solution to what they see as a financial problem. The reality is that health is not a financial problem, it's about life and death for many people, it's about quality of life for other people and it's something that is important and will affect every single one of us. So it's too important to leave to the economists.
QUESTION: Do you believe that some of the doctors' skills would be undermined if these changes come in to place, say if health workers take over their responsibilities?
DR YONG: I don't think health workers doing other jobs will undermine doctors' skills, but what we need to do is support our system, our university and our hospital system, which trains all our health professionals.
And at the moment that's under threat with resources being squeezed. We need to support those services and those hospitals and those universities so that we get the best-trained professionals.
QUESTION: That doctors' skills will be undermined….
DR YONG: Yes. I think that really what we want to see is all health professionals get the best training and the best skills that they can get in their fields and that includes doctors. That means supporting our hospital system, which is one of the major places where we get clinical training done, and our universities. Our hospitals are being squeezed at the moment. It's very hard for doctors and nurses to train their students effectively and provide patient care at the same time. They need much more support. Universities need much more support. If we keep the level of training high, we'll have very highly trained professionals for the future.
QUESTION: What solution do you propose then to relieve some of the pressures on doctors?
DR YONG: Certainly, as I said, one of the things that's happened at the grassroots is that I think doctors and nurses and other professionals are working much more effectively together and this will continue to improve.
We're going to be seeing more Australian medical graduates coming through in the next few years. The Government's already invested quite heavily in increasing the number of medical school places and that will help to ease some of the workforce shortage at the moment.
We need to see and end to some of the red tape that's driving our doctors and nurses out of the system. We need to see more support for our public hospitals so that doctors can see more patients.