Productivity Commission Health Workforce Report: Right Problems, Wrong Answers
AMA Vice President, Dr Choong-Siew Yong, said today that the Productivity Commission's latest report on Australia's health workforce has correctly identified the major health care access problems being faced by communities but many of the proposed solutions will prove unpalatable to patients, the medical profession, and to State Governments wanting electorate support for health reform.
Dr Yong said the AMA agrees that we have to train more doctors locally and provide incentives to keep doctors in the system and attract others back into the workforce, but the Productivity Commission report deliberately sidesteps this issue.
"Proposals to replace doctors with lesser-trained and lower-skilled health workers are unacceptable," Dr Yong said.
"A doctor is a doctor is a doctor.
"Australians in the city and in the country in all States and Territories want quick and affordable access to a doctor, not a doctor substitute.
"The key is to train and retain more local doctors, not rely on importing more and more overseas trained doctors, and build a team-based care system where a medical practitioner is always central to the care team.
"The language of the Productivity Commission Report is all about health workers, not medical workers, and this is a sure sign that shifting roles and tasks from doctors to other health workers is at the heart of the report.
"Australian voters will not accept a lower quality health system, which means Governments seeking re-election will not hit the hustings with health policies based on this report."
Dr Yong said the Productivity Commission was operating under very limited terms of reference but this does not excuse it from advocating a committee-led recovery for the Australian health system.
"The Commission confirms the AMA's belief that we have an excellent health system that provides good access at a reasonable cost," Dr Yong said.
"It has identified poor health outcomes in particular regions and for particular groups and proposes particular strategies that we mostly support.
"But there has not been a close examination of the role of the Australian Government in the training of medical practitioners, which is a very significant role indeed.
"Instead, the Commission proposes to establish a range of new integrated over-arching cross-jurisdictional committees to fix things.
"Such committees will not deliver a streamlined health system or greater 'efficiency and effectiveness' or more doctors: they will give us complete paralysis by bureaucracy.
"Sadly, the report is a missed opportunity so close to the February COAG meeting.
"Investment in health is an investment in our future. Health care is a superior good that will be in greater demand as discretionary incomes rise.
"But at the heart of this particular Productivity Commission report is a proposal for an inferior health good.
"If our governments were to choose to adopt the Commission's recommendations, they would face the unenviable challenge of persuading the Australian population to accept lesser quality health care.
"Voters won't go for that. COAG won't go for that," Dr Yong said.