Dr Kerryn Phelps, AMA President, with Mike Carlton, '2UE'
CARLTON: The Federal Government is about to embark on another one of those multimillion dollar advertising campaigns they're so fond of. I don't know how much it's going to cost.
The Opposition says $50 million, the Government says no, only $25 million. The Opposition says it's to tell us how much we will enjoy paying more at the chemist for our prescriptions. The Government says no, it's nothing to do with that, it's to be spent on a range of pharmaceutical-related education programs. But do we need $25 million spent on a range of pharmaceutical-related education programs? That's $2 dollars for every man - well, it's $1.50 for every man, woman and child in the country, isn't it? I don't know. It seems odd to me.
The AMA is apparently not impressed. The AMA President is Dr Kerryn Phelps. Good afternoon.
PHELPS: Good afternoon, Mike.
CARLTON: Here we go again.
PHELPS: Oh, dear. Another advertising campaign to explain why taxpayers' money is being cut on an essential program like the PBS. To spend $50 million to justify cutting $280 million out of a budget, when they can't even guarantee that that money will or even should be cut, defies belief.
CARLTON: That's only a Labor Party figure, $50 million. The Government denies that, and says it's $25 million, telling us how to, I don't know, use drugs more wisely or something.
PHELPS: The figure that we've seen is around $49.6 million. Whether it's $25 million or $50 million, it's an awful lot of money. At the figure of $50 million, you could have five prescriptions for every one of Australia's three million pensioners.
CARLTON: Yes, all right. I take your point. But surely there is a reasonable case to make out for the Government to say, look, 'you don't need to buy the more expensive prescription, you can use this drug instead of the big brand name,' that sort of thing?
PHELPS: That's not all it's about and generic, as we've said in the past, are not always as good as the branded products for a whole range of reasons, and particularly for elderly people who are accustomed to using a particular type of pill. It might be a certain colour or shape that they're familiar with. If they get changed to a generic, in fact, for example if they go into hospital and they're given a generic to go home with, it looks different to their usual pill, it may not have exactly the same action as their pill that they're accustomed to, they might double up, there are all sorts of reasons why that's not always a good or safe idea.
And these changes have been brought in without any consultation with the medical profession at all. The other sorts of ways that they're looking at trying to cut costs are to increase the number of drugs where you need an authority. Now, this is more red tape, it's more time that GPs are going to have to spend and specialists are going to have to spend on the telephone, talking to a clerk on the end of a phone, explaining a patient's personal medical details, and then getting an approval by telephone from somebody who has never and will never meet that patient.
CARLTON: All right. What do you do with the money then? Where else could it go?
PHELPS: I've got a huge shopping list.
CARLTON: I thought you might. But not for pay rises for doctors, I hope you're not going to say.
PHELPS: Doctors are not employees of government.
CARLTON: I know what you mean.
PHELPS: So unless they happen to work in a hospital, I think they could certainly go a long way to increasing rebates for disadvantaged patients so they're paying smaller gaps. But we have nursing shortages all over the country, we have a whole range of areas where money needs to be spent. Indigenous health is crying out for funds and they're about $245 million a year short per year and they could do an awful lot in indigenous health with $50 million, I can tell you.
CARLTON: Yes, that's true. Okay, good to talk to you. Thank you.
PHELPS: Thanks, Mike.
CARLTON: Dr Kerryn Phelps from the AMA. I don't know why, all governments do it. They love advertising, don't they? Nothing they love better than finding an advertising agent and throwing $10 million at it, to tell us something we all knew about anyway.
You remember the squillions they spent, the Federal Government, the squillions they spent on those stupid "Unchain My Heart" ads for the GST, which we were going to get anyway, whether we liked it or not? It was party political advertising and this is pretty much the same sort of thing, by the look of it. You can get a whole new hospital for $50 million. You could get several new hospitals in the bush for that.
Ends