Interview - Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, AMA Vice President, Radio 3AK - Bulk billing; increased number of women working in medicine; increased working hours for doctors; Dr Kerryn Phelps

CLEARY: Doctor Mukesh Haikerwal is the Australian Medical Association Vice-President. We have spoken to him before, and we're talking about doctors.

And he says the proportion of women working in medicine continues to grow up to 30 per cent compared with 27.2 per cent in 1995. A study found doctors work an average of 45.5 hours a week, down from 48 hours. However, almost half the doctors, 48.2 per cent, worked more than 50 hours per week. And he's with us right now.

Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, how are you?

HAIKERWAL: Good morning, Phil, I'm good, how are you?

CLEARY: All right, what's happening?

HAIKERWAL: Well, what's happening is that we're seeing a trend which has always been coined the feminisation of medicine. I find that a little offensive. I think it's more the socialisation of medicine. What we've seen is the proportion of people entering medical school, the proportion of women increasing to just over 50 per cent. In fact, my year was the first with a 50 per cent intake.

Now, what that means, of course, is that the way in which women are perceived to work is, not quite as many hours and not quite as arduous as men. I don't think that's actually true. I think they work just as hard and just as long. But the whole society is changing, the way in which they are prepared to work.

So what we're finding is people in general, doctors in general are saying, `we want to do other things to break up our days so that we're sharper when we do what we do, and we're not prepared to work all the stupid hours that our forefathers used to work'. And therefore the participation rate, or the percentage of hours, doc. I mean, we have a Federal organisation, and I'm state -- Federal Vice-President, having been State President. But it's something that ... it's an elected position, and I'm responsible to each individual member. So I'm only as good as the members are.

CLEARY: What's the movie star doing these days?

HAIKERWAL: I think you're talking to Kerryn. Kerryn's doing a practice in Sydney, and she's going to do some academic work, I understand, which is really good, because she'll be really good at that.

CLEARY: So she -- what's her relationship with the AMA now?

HAIKERWAL: She's the immediate past President, and she's a very well-respected member of the profession, and obviously the past President is somebody that's very important in the organisation.

CLEARY: So did she drive the AMA down a progressive path?

HAIKERWAL: Look, I think that she gave the AMA a very -- a healthy image, and a very loud image in the marketplace, because it's very important that we're seen not just as being a, quote unquote, `doctors union', which some people call us, but also an advocate for the patients.

We understand what's going on out there. We won't let the wool be pulled over patients' eyes, and make sure we get the best deal for Australians, for health, both in the state and in the federal system.

CLEARY: But are you seen, in the AMA, as being too much interested in doctors' income at the expense of the expenditures of the public?

HAIKERWAL: Look, I mean, we're always going to be in danger of being labelled. We would like to see ourselves as certainly looking after the interests of doctors. That's of course our number one concern. We're a membership-driven organisation. People pay a reasonable fee to be a member, and expect us to represent them.

However, we do have a very important public health role, advocating for the public health, advocating for public expenditure to be increased in our hospital systems, making sure the Medicare and the Pharmaceuticals Benefit Scheme provide accessible medical services and pharmaceuticals.

Because, you know, this is an investment in our future. The healthier we are, the longer we live, the more productive we are, and the better society we'll be because of it.

CLEARY: Yes, indeed. So, are we a healthy society?

HAIKERWAL: The society is generally much healthier now than it used to be. We are seeing lots of problems coming through, including obesity being a major problem. We know that mental health is quite underfunded. We know that dementia is going to be a huge problem in the future.

These are all signs of aging, and the population getting older, so they're getting more and more of these sorts of complaints. Heart disease is still a problem. And of course smoking, drugs and all those things are causing us self-inflicted harm, and we need to make sure we deal with those.

CLEARY: Do you need to take a stronger line on some of the social settings? For example, those that relate to obesity and diabetes, ie, fast food?

HAIKERWAL: Yeah, look, we certainly have got lots of ideas around that in our public health committee, a meeting of experts, we'll certainly be providing more discussion in the community with various solutions.

I mean, there was talk about a fat tax, we spoke about that last time. That wasn't the only thing that we were talking about. It was just something to explore.

And we understand that in Australia we have a fantastic lifestyle, we have fantastic weather, food, and an opportunity to do things. And we need to use them to the best of our availability and make good choices --

CLEARY: We might come back to that question, because it's something that particularly interests me. Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, the Australian Medical Association Vice-President, has been talking to us about a whole range of things to do with medicine.

Ends