Remote areas ‘will get more doctors’

Sen Nash plans to improve delivery through incentives

FIXING the broken incentive scheme for doctors to come to regional Australia will be the top priority this year for Assistant Health Minister Senator Fiona Nash.

The Abbott Government’s minister responsible for rural and regional health, Sen Nash said fixing the geographical classification system that governed incentives to encourage doctors to leave the city was the most important issue faced by rural health this year.

The Australian Standard Geographical Classification – Remoteness Area effectively determines whether doctors can access payments of at least $2500 a year to move to an inner regional area and up to $13,000 for working in a very remote area.

However, long-standing problems have dogged the system since its introduction in 2001, because it pays the same rates to doctors working in some major regional cities as those in some smaller, more remote towns.

“The previous (Howard) government put in place the incentives program to help ensure doctors move to regional areas, but it actually pays the same incentives for doctors to go to a town of 2000 to those who might move to a major town of 60,000,” Sen Nash said.

“Addressing that and other regional workforce issues and how to improve the incentive scheme is my priority this year.”

While Sen Nash was part of a Senate inquiry last year that closely examined the issue, she said she would not be rushing to meet a deadline this year – instead focusing on “getting it right”.

She said that after many years of not having enough doctors in Australia, we now had enough but they largely resided in the cities.

“It’s my target that by the end, we will be able to say there are better outcomes for rural health,” she said.

Sen Nash said she would also focus on improving mental health, nutrition and food labelling, as chair of the Food Ministers Council.