Transcript - Dr Gannon - SKY News - After-hours Reforms
Transcript: AMA President, Dr Michael Gannon, with Samantha Maiden, SKY News, 18 December 2017
Subject: After-hours Reforms
SAMANTHA MAIDEN: We are going to go to Perth now to talk to the AMA President, Dr Michael Gannon, who is standing by to discuss a little story that is buried in this MYEFO document, which is new restrictions on after-hours GPs.
It’s morning in Perth, so I’ll say good morning, Dr Gannon.
MICHAEL GANNON: Good morning, Sam.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN: What is your reaction? There is buried in this document just a small line item for restrictions on after-hours GPs. I know that the Government has had some concerns about this scheme. This allows GPs, with a very generous Medicare rebate, to actually visit people in the home. I should say, as a disclaimer, I have used the service and, like a lot of parents, I really like it, but I know that the AMA hasn’t always liked it. Why is that?
MICHAEL GANNON: Well, we’ve had concerns about the amount of money in a limited funding pool going into urgent item numbers for after-hours care. It makes no sense at all that you see a GP in their room, someone who knows your history, know all about you, has your records, and they’re getting effectively paid one-third as much as a doctor who’s not necessarily a specialist trained GP visiting you in your home. Now, we don’t think this is going to result in savings for the Government. In fact, we’re demanding that any savings from these changes are reinvested in high-quality medical practice. But we’ve been very grateful for the engagement of Minister Hunt in discussing a way to make beneficial changes to this important element of the health system.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN: There’s been a bit of a scare campaign in relation to this scheme, some might even call it xenophobic, suggesting that it’s foreign-trained doctors that have been involved in the scheme. Now, when I looked into that some time ago when this flared as a controversy, the operators of some of these schemes made the point that, in many cases, some of these doctors are actually restricted from work in other areas of the economy, so it was no great surprise that they made their services available here. I suppose my question also is, if patients love it and it gives these doctors a job, why are we cracking down on it when it is so hard for particularly working parents to actually find a GP that they can visit?
MICHAEL GANNON: Well, overseas medical graduates form a particularly important part of the health workforce. We rely on them in staffing public hospitals in our major cities, they make up a huge proportion of the rural workforce and, as you point out, they’re also big contributors to after-hours care. This is an important element of the health system and that’s why it was so important that the system wasn’t trashed. We’re grateful that Minister Hunt has listened to our arguments on this and has introduced the changes over a period of time, but it also needs to be said that the most effective and best value for money health care comes from seeing people at your general practitioner during the day, and some of the use of the urgent after-hours item numbers was less than appropriate. We think the Minister’s got the right balance with these changes. We look forward to working with him to make sure any of these savings are invested in high-quality deputising services, especially those where these doctors have a formal relationship with the GPs they’re covering.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN: Okay. So Michael, there is some good news, I suppose, in terms of health spending in this Budget: a lot of extra spending on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, although not new in a new sense; we were aware of it already.
MICHAEL GANNON: Yes. We need to look at the detail of MYEFO, obviously it’s only just been released. The big-ticket items for us is month by month we move closer to re-indexation for patient rebates when they’re seeing GPs or other specialists. We’ve got so far to go, we’ve got so much more work to do in improving funding in areas that need it, like pathology, like diagnostic imaging. We’ve got a private health insurance review that needs to be tidied up in the new year. The need for increased spending in the health system is not going to go away, but we’re pleased that we’ve got a Minister that’s listening to arguments about high-quality, evidence-based healthcare.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN: What would you like to see in terms of the Medicare freeze? Obviously Labor has a position on that out in the field. Is there anything more that you’ll be pursuing in the new year with the Government in the lead up to the May Budget?
MICHAEL GANNON: Well, we’re not expecting any earlier indexation of Medicare item numbers. We’d like to see that, but our engagement with the Government, our focus early in the new year, will be on the new public hospital agreements with the States and Territories. There’s talk of a ten-year agreement. If that is good additional funding for public hospitals, we’ll support that; if it’s locking in chronic underfunding, we’ve got the same problem. The MBS reviews continue. We’ve got a long way to go to make sure that the changes to private health insurance are good for those Australians who hold health insurance. So it’s a complex portfolio; we look forward to continuing this work in the new year.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN: Alright, Dr Gannon, thank you very much for your time today. We know you’ve got lots of things on to do with your actual day job today, so thank you very much for your time today. We really appreciate it.
MICHAEL GANNON: Thank you, Sam, and Merry Christmas.
18 December 2017
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