System of identifying shortages leads to skewing of resources towards wealthier areas, says Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
Several poorer, rural regions are being disadvantaged by the way the Australian government identifies significant doctor shortages, while some wealthy areas are being classified as needing extra resources.
But rural towns on the city and regional fringes say their status is being boosted by their non-rural neighbours in the same geographic area that attract more GPs. As a result, they are missing out on DPA status and struggling to attract the international doctors they once relied on to fill workforce gaps.
Yet the neighbouring area of Mount Eliza which is ranked by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as having the highest level of advantage in the Mornington Peninsula qualified for DPA status. This is despite Pearcedale having a mixed population that includes significantly disadvantaged people, Rastegar said.
“But until we start to sophisticate the way that we measure areas of need, we will probably continue to misclassify areas and create new gaps where others were nonexistent, and then failed to fill gaps that we’re not recognising.”Peta Rutherford, the CEO of the Rural Doctors Association, said remoteness modelling is often a “blunt instrument” and it was significantly affecting patients on the fringes of capital cities or larges regional centres.
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