Rudd vows to fix doctor shortage
Categories : General Practice, News |
Rudd vows to fix doctor shortage | The Australian
KEVIN Rudd is promising to pay to fill a shortfall of doctors across the nation after a comprehensive audit of how many are needed.
Once again Kevin Rudd is sticking to his two main vote winning techniques. One is promising inquires, commitees, investigations, audits. And the second is throwaway slogans saying that he’s going to fix whatever problem it is he’s addressing. But always the promises lack any real detail.
The problem in this case is that you can’t pay to fix a doctor shortage. No matter how much money you spend you can’t magically make doctors appear out of thin air to fill a void. There is only a finite number of doctors to go around. Sure he could spend money to pay the existing doctors more (and I’m certainly in favour of that - lol) but that would not solve workforce problems. Even if by paying GPs more it encouraged more doctors to enter GP training that’s only going to add to a shortfall in other specialties. The only quick fix for doctor numbers is to import more from overseas, which is already being done to a huge extent. But that approach has it’s problems in terms of insuring quality treatment, and the questionable ethics of poaching doctors from other countries which may be experiencing their own doctor shortages.
The long term solution is more medical school places, and a shorter term solution is to work on measures to redistribute doctors to better address needs across the community. The Howard government has already taken steps on both these issues, although I’m sure there is more tinkering that can be done. Basically no matter what they do, this doctor shortage is a long term issue that is not going to disappear overnight no matter how many audits they do or how much money they spend. Rudd is again being disingenuous by suggesting that he will be able to magically fix it.
