Anthony Albanese should hear out calls by state premiers for more federal GP funding. Then make it clear why he is not going to comply.
The wayward royal blames everyone for his woes but himself. Similarly, when it comes to their hospital systems’ underwhelming performance, it’s all someone else’s fault for Perrottet and Andrews.For them, someone else is the federal government. As far as Perrottet and Andrews are concerned, the buck now stops with incumbent Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, whose health policy poison chalice was inherited from his Labor as well as Coalition predecessors.
Yet, their “solution” of more middle-class welfare via universally accessible bulk-billed GP services, by lifting Medicare rebates, solves no problems. Rather, it is a political straw man set up by Perrottet and Andrews to divert attention from the failings of their own governments. For Perrottet especially, this is imperative: facing a March election in which the NSW Coalition will struggle, he has to be seen to be doing something while, Harry-like, simplistically finding a scapegoat.
As for more bulk-billed GP services easing pressure on emergency departments, it’s happening now. Initiated by Abbott when he was health minister, in a handshake deal with his then Labor counterpart in Western Australia, state-owned or supported GP clinics collocated with, or near, public hospital emergency departments have become commonplace. Just last week, Andrews announced a further clutch of such clinics for Victoria. It’s an imperfect solution, but to an extent it works.
The real problem with GP-type services in emergency departments is not cost. It’s accessibility. Illness and injury don’t keep standard hours: patients present when their GP surgery isn’t available, especially in evenings, overnight and on weekends. Successive federal governments, from John Howard’s administration onwards, invested considerably in rebates and incentives for after-hours primary care, including home-visiting locum services.
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