By Colin MacGillivray
FEDERAL Member for McEwen Rob Mitchell has hailed a change in the government’s distribution priority area, DPA, classification for general practitioners as a win for the electorate, but a Wallan doctor says practices in the town will still struggle to recruit.
Mr Mitchell pledged to reinstate DPA status for towns within McEwen, including Wallan and Whittlesea, in the lead-up to this year’s federal election, after it was revoked under the previous government.
DPA classification identifies areas with lower levels of GP services and gives them priority access to doctors, including international medical graduates.
Changes took effect on July 21, with more than 700 areas across Australia including Wallan, Whittlesea, Wandong and Romsey receiving DPA status.
Mr Mitchell said the changes would improve the recruitment prospects for medical clinics in his electorate.
“It means [practices] can now go out and search the market to find more GPs,” he said.
“It means more chances to get overseas-trained doctors. It’s not the silver bullet, but it means they’ve got a better chance of being able to access more medical professionals for our region.”
Wallan Family Practice senior doctor Dennis Holland said while other towns in the electorate would benefit from the return of DPA status, Wallan clinics would lag behind.
Wallan is still classified as a metropolitan area under the Modified Monash Model, MMM, meaning doctors make less money working in the town compared with surrounding areas.
Dr Holland said he did not understand why Wallan was classified as MM1, or metropolitan, when all the surrounding areas including Kilmore, Wandong, Heathcote Junction, Upper Plenty and Whittlesea were classed as regional.
“Unless they change the metropolitan status we’re stuck, because any doctor who leaves cannot easily be replaced,” he said.
Dr Holland is the sole doctor remaining at the practice, which he estimated had about 1500 patients on its books.
“It’s just me at the moment, and if I get sick there is no one. And I’m not going to hang around until I drop dead,” he said.
“My wife wants me to retire, but if I do, where do [the patients] go?”
Dr Holland credited Mr Mitchell for striving to help practices recruit doctors but said there was still no indication of whether Wallan would be reclassified as a regional area under the MMM.
“Rob Mitchell has been very supportive of us, but I think he is pulling his hair out,” Dr Holland said.
“He was hitting his head against the bureaucracy and there seemed to be no common sense in it – they have cast-iron rules and that’s it.
“I don’t know who designs the MMM status. It’s not done by provider numbers and it’s not done by patient numbers, it’s done by a secret formula that no one knows about. I don’t know what the formula is and it seems you’re not allowed to ask.”
Mr Mitchell said he had written to Health Minister Greg Hunt asking him to review Wallan’s MMM status but could not guarantee that it would be changed.
