Bureaucracy and a worthy initiative

SO what is the real deal about the Government’s Private General Practitioners (PGP) Scheme? It is supposed to be aimed at making healthcare more accessible!

That’s the line of thinking a lot of us have. We expect easy access to proper health care. In fact we expect the best service delivery and we expect attention to firmly be focused on raising standards in terms of care, and attention to detail.

So when at least two doctors are raising the issue of access now, it does ring a bell.

We hope we don’t have a scenario where there is a worrying hurdle. Where bureaucratic complexities are deterring both patients and doctors, jeopardizing the initiative’s effectiveness.

While the intentions behind the scheme are laudable, Dr Netani Koroi’s experience, seeing less than three patients a week compared with 30-40 previously, paints a rather worrying picture of how administrative hassles can negatively impact a well-meaning program.

We learn that the key issue here is the cumbersome application process. Incomplete documentation, as Dr Koroi highlights, acts as a major bottleneck. Patients, unfamiliar with the required forms and procedures, navigate a maze of paperwork, apparently, often leading to rejection and frustration.

This appears to discourage many patients from utilizing the scheme and concerns doctors like Dr Koroi, who grapple with incomplete applications and a significant drop in patient volume.

Another practitioner from Nakasi further emphasizes the lack of public awareness around the application process.

So we have a situation where patients, expecting seamless access to free healthcare, are left disappointed, and doctors struggle with the roll-on impact on their services.

We can only hope this disconnect between intention and execution won’t threaten the sustainability of the scheme and undermine its potential to positively impact public health.

There are undoubtedly examples of the negative impact on service provided by some doctors. So we can only hope there will be attention on streamlining the application process for starters if this is truly happening.

Then it would be good to have more awareness campaigns targeted at empowering the public.

In the face of that, we would have to look up to the powers that be to improve communication with doctors.

We hope there are discussions going on between the Ministry of Health and medical practitioners to address any concerns they may have.

Then there is the bit about monitoring the scheme, ensuring attention is focused on making it a success, and there are continuous improvements factored in.

It is important that we are also continuously exploring alternative schemes to ensure we have one that is tailormade for our country, its demands, and the expectations of the public.

There obviously is potential in the scheme to improve access to health care in Fiji.

In saying that though, we hope attention is placed on the current system and emphasis placed on empowering people who are expected to use the service.

Access to good healthcare is something we all want. Fiji deserves a system that delivers on that promise effectively.