Interview - Dr Bill Glasson, AMA President, with Tim Holt, ABC South East NSW - Medical scholarship scheme; medical students bond scheme

COMPERE:     Bill, what's been the response of medical students?  What do they think of the scholarship?

GLASSON:      Well, Tim, we actually surveyed 700 of them, just recently, and just about 99% said they would reject the Government's offer.  They said it was unfair and unjust.  They were the ones, really, that suggested putting, you know, a scholarship proposal up because they felt that was the fair and just way of doing it.  And more importantly they felt that would actually impact on delivery of services to the rural areas.

Now if you said to him, well how much are these scholarships going to cost the taxpayer?

COMPERE:     That was my next question.

GLASSON:      Yeah. I mean for the 234, we're suggesting that, if you pay the HECS fees, it would cost about $4 million a year.  I think that's a pretty cheap investment for 234 doctors that you can actually send around the country.  So I - we said to the Government, listen, if you put that, you know, for a $4 million dollar investment you're either going to have a wonderful sort of, you know, group of young doctors who you can actually utilise from the point of view of areas of need both within rural areas.  But as you said in your introduction, Tim, we've got huge problems in the outer-metropolitan areas as well.  I think they'll be in great demand, these young doctors.

COMPERE:     Is that the only issue that's preventing young doctors from coming to the country?  I mean if coastal centres like we have in this part of the world, offering a great lifestyle and a growing population can't attract doctors, let alone young doctors, what hope is there for some of the smaller communities in our region?

GLASSON:      Tim, I always say that I feel the solution is, and this is why I go and service the bush even to this day, as an ophthalmologist, I go out bush all the time, is because I was born out there.  So I think we need to attract students who are born in the areas that we need them to go to.  We need to train them in the areas that they need to go to, and that's very important.  And thirdly, and probably the most important thing, is they need to marry in the areas that you want them to work.

Because in reality it's the spouse in many cases that says, there's no point in me being in Burke because I can't be a, you know, top barrister, or something whatever the spouse or he or she might do.  And so that often we've got to consider both parties here, the doctor and the spouse to make sure that they have a, you know, an appropriate option to carry out their profession.

So the spouse issue is a major one and we've got to really make sure they get looked after.

COMPERE:     Well on that point, not just the spouse issue but then of course the other issue of the facilities that are available in that community and I guess particularly a well resourced hospital and backup services. How important is that?

GLASSON:      Very important, Tim.  I think in reality if you can get the doctors out there then they should resource the hospital appropriately.  So that the doctors can really, I mean, most of the rural doctors are very highly skilled and very procedural, so they need to have the facilities whereby they can do all those procedures in a safe environment.  Feel as though they've got the sufficient support and importantly to make sure that they've got relief so that they're not on-call 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

And that's probably one of the biggest factors we are finding in the rural areas now is that continuous on-call sort of tends to wear them down.  And so we're going to make sure that every month or so that someone comes and relieves them, so they can get away, get a break from the whole thing. And it's all those simple little things that actually make the difference.

And I would say to the Governments, who we know move these doctors around, for goodness sake make sure they get a decent house to stay in, make sure that you give them sufficient relief and make sure they've got time to go and, you know, have continual medical education, which is very important these days.  All those little things make a huge difference.

COMPERE:     You've written to the Deputy Prime Minister.  Have you received at all a positive response from Government?

GLASSON:      Yeah I spoke - I've written to the Deputy Prime Minister and also spoke to the Senior Rural Adviser on Friday and outlined our proposal to her.  And also we're going to circulate, I suppose, the basis of our proposal to all politicians on both sides of the House, asking for their support.

And next Tuesday we're actually presenting to the Senate inquiry into Medicare, which is - this is part of the package.  And so we're going to strongly argue at that meeting on behalf of our students and young doctors about this proposal and the merits of it.  And really the issue - the real issue is that we think this will make a difference to the rural workforce and that their scheme really has got little to, you know, little credibility essentially.

COMPERE:     Politicians being politicians.  Are you confident of a positive response?

GLASSON:      Tim, I hope so.  I think that this situation - I think what we've proposed here, particularly if you can argue if it's to work, if it's not going to cost too much money, I think they'd be silly not to accept it.  If they don't, I can tell you they're going to have a very unhappy medical student workforce out there.  And I think that if they're smart enough they will accept it and move forward with it.  Because it is as I said, it's a constructive proposal that I think is well thought out and importantly for my bushy friends out there I want to make sure that they get the services that they deserve.

COMPERE:     AMA President, Dr Glasson, thanks for your time this morning.

GLASSON:     Tim, thanks so much indeed.

Ends