“We note with deep concern that the Federal Government has announced it is starting the privatisation process of the Aged Care Assessment Teams (ACAT)” said Dr Tim Woodruff, President, Doctors Reform Society. “This taxpayer funded and government run scheme which assesses what help our older Australians need, whether it be help in the home, or a move to supported accommodation. It has done this with the full knowledge that its own Royal Commission into Aged Care is deeply concerned about the appropriateness of market forces to deliver care to those needing Aged Care. It is planning a full report with funding recommendations by November 2020.”

“Nothing in this interim report suggests that a way forward is to privatise anything. Indeed, the report has clear concerns about ‘the market’.”

“In October 2017, the Carnell-Paterson review concluded that ‘the rationale for regulation of residential aged care quality is that the market is an inadequate mechanism to ensure the safety and wellbeing of highly vulnerable residents’.73

Despite these discussions within recent reviews, in the main reviews conducted since 1997 have not questioned the evolution of the aged care system into one more reliant on ‘market forces’ or re-examined the institutional structures through which aged care is provided. In the months ahead, the Royal Commission will further explore the need for measures to manage a fragmented market for the delivery of aged care, along with consideration of alternatives.”

Page 80 Interim Report of Royal Commission into Aged Care

“A privatised ACAT will be a race to the bottom”, said Dr Woodruff. “Poorly trained assessors will inadequately assess complex patient needs as they gouge Government fees for their private owners and force the dedicated assessors out of the system because they will not be profitable. More taxes wasted and gifted to private businesses”.

Dr Woodruff asks “Does this really sound like a way to improve the lives of our aging population?”

“Suggestions that video consultations with GPs may soon be funded is just a start to what is needed to address the Covid-19 outbreak” said Dr Tim Woodruff, President, Doctors Reform Society.

“GPs and their staff will be the mainstay of limiting the spread and sorting out the huge flood of patients seeking advice and medical help as the crisis evolves”, said Dr Woodruff. “Hospitals will indeed be central for those who are sick, but to prevent hospitals being completely overwhelmed we need general practices to be funded and resourced to cope.”

“Much of the sorting out of patients could be done by telephone but GPs can’t be expected to spend an hour or more a day on the phone without Government support. Currently doctors do a little bit of phone consulting without any payment. That model is unsustainable in this situation. Video consultations are fine for those patients who can do it, but many of the elderly and poor cannot, so we need funding for telephone consultations.”

“It’s not just GP phone time which the Federal Government needs to fund, it’s all the equipment, the use of a dedicated isolation room, and the staff time which will add massively to the burden on general practices.”

“State Health Ministers need to talk with the Federal Government about this so that the public hospitals and Emergency Departments have some hope of coping with the huge burden they will need to deal with”, said Dr Woodruff. “If this isn’t addressed, many patients who don’t need to be seen in ED will clog the system, leading to worsening of the outbreak.”

“How we deal with this evolving crisis will demonstrate just how crucial primary health care is and how its chronic underfunding needs to be corrected”.

Dr Tim Woodruff, President, Ph 0401042619

Dr Con Costa, Vice President  Ph 0418400309

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http://drs.org.au

“There is much talk of Health Policy coming into this election and all parties have committed to major spending across many areas,” said Dr Tim Woodruff, Vice-President, Doctors Reform Society. “However, the delivery of better health outcomes for all Australians is not simply sorted by feeding money into an archaic 40-year-old funding model. Reform is needed and has been largely ignored by the major parties.”

“If progressive independents, Teals, and Greens hold the balance of power we may see genuine reform soon,” said Dr Woodruff. “If Labor is returned perhaps the reforms they have been working on but have no apparent plans to implement might eventually see daylight. There is nothing to suggest the Coalition wants progressive reform.”

Dr Tim Woodruff, Vice President, Ph 0401042619

http://drs.org.au

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“The announcement by CoHealth that it will close its doors to thousands of patients in the inner northern Melbourne suburbs is an appalling sign of a lack of concern by both State and Federal Governments about the health of some of the most disadvantaged Australians”, said Dr Tim Woodruff, president, Doctors Reform Society.

“Community Health Centres were set up by Gough Whitlam in 1974 and only Victoria has maintained and expanded them since that time. They fill the enormous gap that exists in our very archaic health system which fails the most disadvantaged in our society,” said Dr Woodruff. “Despite limited resources, they attempt to provide access to comprehensive care for patients who simply can’t afford to seek that care in the general medical community.”

“Now the usual game will be played by the State and Federal Governments. Ít is not our fault’ each will say. This is a pathetic response to a potential life- threatening crisis in access to care. The respective health ministers need to be locked in a room and kept there until they come up with a solution.”

“Sadly, nothing remotely like that will happen. Patients will die or suffer,” said Dr Woodruff. “Governments will pretend they did what they could.”

Dr Tim Woodruff

President

Ph 0401042619

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“The budget has highlighted a range of Medicare changes all previously released. They are welcome changes,” said Dr Tim Woodruff, Vice President of the Doctors Reform Society. “But the Health Minister has announced almost nothing to address the structural reforms needed to update Medicare, reforms which he announced as Chair of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce in early 2023.”

Instead of genuine reform, we are getting band-aids, welcome indeed, but failing to address what is needed into the future. As his Taskforce recommended,

“Support general practice in management of complex chronic disease through blended funding models integrated with fee-for-service” 

“The Taskforce made many recommendations that would help achieve the goal of efficiently funding a high quality, 21^st century primary health care system,” said Dr Woodruff. “Most have not been acted upon. Medicare needs major surgery, not just extra bulk billing payment and cheaper drugs, and this budget is a missed opportunity to kick-start the process.”

Dr Tim Woodruff                                           Dr Scott Douglas

Vice President                                                   President

0401 042 619                                                     0411 770 980

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“Why has health care been almost ignored in this year’s budget”, asks Dr Peter Davoren, Secretary, Doctors Reform Society. In January last year Health Minister Butler said, “Frankly I think our general practice right now is in the worst shape it has been in the 40-year history of Medicare,” His Strengthening Medicare Taskforce made many recommendations and the Minister said at the time that ‘a comprehensive revamp’ was required, including addressing ‘structural issues’.

What has happened since? Almost nothing. Patient enrolment with a general practice has been established but no other significant structural changes have been made. An increase in bulk billing incentive which ignores the working poor is an important minor tweak. “What we then expected”, says Dr Davoren, “was a gradual rollout of progressive changes to the way the Federal Government funded and organised care for the epidemic of chronic disease, and to do so in a way which reached the most vulnerable in our community.”

“This year’s Budget commits to new and more comprehensive funding of mental health but fails to anchor that care around GPs who are the one health professional groups seeing the majority of patients with mental health conditions. The funding is welcome but could have been better directed,” says Dr Davoren. “Urgent care clinics may be helpful but do nothing for the many patients struggling with chronic disease, unaffordable GPs, and long waiting times to see a regular GP. Nor do they do anything to provide comprehensive integrated primary health care.”

Apart from that, there are some small well directed initiatives, particularly to HIV, but little else of note.

The Budget does address multiple causes of cost-of-living stresses which are major contributors to poor health and these commitments are also welcome. But once again the most vulnerable miss out. The unemployed continue to live below the poverty line because Labor refuses to ‘raise the rate’ for the unemployed.

“We welcomed the Health Minister’s words last year”, says Dr Davoren. “Where then, is the action?”