Pain of doctor shortage to ease with students

The WA president of the Australian Medical Association predicts the State’s severe doctor shortage will be alleviated in the next five to 10 years.

Professor David Mountain’s optimism come after new figures show there are 97 general practitioner vacancies in regional WA, with 83 of the vacancies in areas of high need.

Professor Mountain said while he could not give exact figures for the Pilbara region, he knew the area was in desperate need of more GPs.

“We know there is a serious shortage of doctors in the Pilbara, especially around pressure areas like indigenous health,” he said.

“There is a problem with areas like the Pilbara because doctors need somewhere to stay,, which is hard to find sometimes.

“The Government needs to be doing all it can to entice health workers to the region.”

However, Professor Mountain said with high numbers of medical students in training and access to rural health for medical students increasing, he was confident the problem would ease over time.

“Young medical students are realising that training and working in rural WA has its benefits,” he said.

“There’s no magic wand for an issue like this, but the prospects are brighter for the next five or 10 years.”

Questioned about the high number of WA GP vacancies in Federal Parliament on Thursday, Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said it would take time for increases in medical student numbers to filter through to the system.

“The Government are putting a great deal of effort into both attracting and retaining a regional workforce in not just Western Australia but other parts of the country,” she said.

“We have substantially increased GP training places and we have substantially increased investment in post-medical school places to train GPs, but those students take a while to come through the system.

“We will see improvements as those Australian GPs come through the system.”