Point Cook growth strains GPs’ workload

DOCTORS are refusing to take new patients in Point Cook as the area’s desperate shortage of GPs continues to bite.

The Westgate General Practice Network says there is a gaping divide between doctor-to-patient ratios in inner city and outer western suburban areas, leaving residents languishing on waiting lists and struggling to find a nearby doctor.

In 2010 there was one doctor for every 1540 Wyndham residents, compared to one for every 695 in inner Melbourne.

But WGPN chairman Bill Tehan believes the gap in Wyndham has ballooned even wider in the wake of the municipality’s rapid population growth of more than 12,000 new residents

last year.

He said the GP crisis would worsen unless the federal government reinstated the area’s priority status as a district of workforce shortage (DWS), allowing funding applications to recruit overseas-trained doctors.

Areas receive the classification if they fall below the national average for the provision of medical services. Overseas doctors wanting to work in Australia are compelled, when applying for Medicare rebate eligibility, to work in a

designated DWS.

Mr Tehan said many Wyndham clinics had reached capacity and “closed their books” to

new clients.

“You’ve already got problems there with GPs turning away patients, and where does that leave the guy who needs medical attention?”

Hobsons Bay Council this month voted to work with health providers to lobby federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek to reinstate the classification for the area between Altona

and Geelong.

As part of its campaign, the council will also request a change to DWS, to exclude GPs working within hospital networks, which it believes “will more accurately reflect the availability of the number of GPs to the community”.

Wyndham Council chief executive Kerry Thompson said the council had not yet formally implemented any similar advocacy plans.

Dr Saad Albarki, who has more than 9000 patients on file at the Friendly Medical Centre in Watton Street, Werribee, said GPs were straining to service a growing and ageing population.

“A healthy working day for a general practitioner should be about eight hours, but sometimes these days, it’s more than 12 hours. You have to do it, there’s a lot of demand, otherwise there’ll end up being more pressure on the hospital.”

Dr Albarki said the government needed to reconsider classifying Wyndham as a DWS region.