Radio Interview - ABC SA Regional with Emma Pedler
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC SA REGIONAL
FRIDAY, 7 JANUARY 2021
SUBJECTS: GP shortages; rapid antigen test shortages.
EMMA PEDLER, HOST: Karen Grogan is a Labor Senator for South Australia. She's only been in the job for a couple of months, but what she wants right now is to hear from you about some of the difficulties you've had in getting a doctor's appointment or that continuity of care. Good morning.
KAREN GROGAN, LABOR SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA: Good morning, Emma. Thanks for having me on.
PEDLER: Thanks for coming on to tell us more about this. Now you've set up a bit of a survey.
GROGAN: Yes, so there’s a Senate Inquiry going on into GP access and related health issues. What I'm hoping to do is to get people in the regions to tell me their experiences so that I can put forward to that committee some of those actual experiences of people. There's been quite a number of submissions made across South Australia to the inquiry, including 13 from the regional areas, including the Kimba Council, Goyder, the health networks for the Northern Eyre Peninsula, Wheatbelt and Streaky Bay, and they’ve provided some excellent information and some excellent statistics for that committee. But what I want to be able to do is to get people to tell me what their personal experiences have been, so that I can then present that forward to the committee, which will be meeting in Whyalla on the 1st of March.
PEDLER: Why Whyalla?
GROGAN: There were three hearings across Australia. One has been held in New South Wales in Erina, one was held in Canberra, and we got to hold one in South Australia, and Whyalla was the place that was chosen by the committee.
PEDLER: Okay, so it's just kind of in the middle of South Australia kind of thing?
GROGAN: Effectively, yeah.
PEDLER: What then happens with the information once it's all put together, what happens then? Because, you know, this has been an issue that has been discussed for – I've been at ABC for over 20 years, for that length of time.
GROGAN: Yeah, absolutely. And there's been a range of policies implemented, some of which are just having minimal or no effect. What we need to be able to do is have a much deeper look, not just on the statistics, because as you would well know, the distribution of population across South Australia means that sometimes those things look quite skewed. So, we need to be able to get that information about what people are actually experiencing, so that we can pursue better policies for better outcomes in the regions. And a Senate inquiry is the classic way to do that, to get all of that inflammation on the record and get back information used as a kickoff point for developing better strategies, better policy.
PEDLER: This survey, is it only just available to people today, or have you had people telling you about their concerns or issues already?
GROGAN: I have had people telling me about their issues and concerns. We've had people contact the office, I was talking to people about this through Port Pirie, Port Augusta, Whyalla, Kimba before Christmas, when I was there. People are very concerned. In Kimba, for example, in the last six years, they've only had two years where they've had a GP on hand, a resident GP, and that really, really impacts the quality and continuity of care for people, and that's really negative in terms of the ongoing health outcomes for the region.
PEDLER: They had to get a six-year-old, or she might've been younger than that, to write a public letter, doing a callout, offering to bake them biscuits to get any even interest in that as well.
GROGAN: Yeah, exactly. The locum situation, while it’s an important element, it cannot be the primary strategy to provide health care.
PEDLER: Border closures have had a huge impact on that too, haven't they?
GROGAN: They certainly have, because a lot of the locums that are used are from interstate and some from overseas. And so, with the last two years of COVID, there's been an inability for them to actually travel across border or into Australia. So, it has had a significant impact. And what we need to be able to do is develop our health service so that it can withstand those variabilities. The situation we're in at the moment is, is quite ridiculous. Under COVID, as you've been talking about this morning, the access to PCR tests is making it very difficult for people.
As a country, we've been completely ill-prepared for this pandemic, which is ridiculous. When you look at so many countries around the world, we've had exactly the same information about, have been able to prepare themselves much better. The AMA, the Australian Medical Association, warned Australia in September, that the availability of the rapid antigen tests that you can administer at home, would be a significant problem and that we needed to prepare for that. But unfortunately, the federal government has done nothing to do that.
PEDLER: I've said, I think I've got more rats in my chook yard at the moment than we can find RAT tests on the Eyre Peninsula.
GROGAN: Same, it's crazy. We lift the ban on using the RAT tests in South Australia the week before Christmas, when there were none in South Australia and nothing had been done to order them. It's a crazy situation that we find ourselves in and the impact that that's having on people is unconscionable. People quarantining at home, being unable to get a PCR test, being unable to get an appointment to even start that process. And it's affecting businesses significantly as well because people then can't go to work.
PEDLER: They can't get the sick certificate either, which I think is one big issue that many people are dealing with.
GROGAN: It has a huge economic impact on people. For so many people, you don't go to work, you don't get paid. And that just means that it's impacting and hurting the community quite significantly. And the economists saying that the RAT tests shouldn’t be free, by the federal government, it's ridiculous. The cost of a RAT test, compared to the cost of a PCR test, it just makes no sense. A PCR test, you've got at least five paid staff from the health system engaged in each of the processes around that, not to mention the security they've got on testing sites and all of that. And a RAT test is so much cheaper.
PEDLER: Back to the issue that we've got with doctors in regional areas at the moment, I think apart from the long list of issues that doctors have told us about over a couple of decades of working alone, overworked, not enough support, no time for training and education, services being taken away and centralised, we've got the issue that you can actually leave that job, and then come back as a contractor, as a locum and get paid way more than twice the amount.
GROGAN: That's right, there are real disincentives in the system. And as you know, the role of a GP in a community is so much more than as a doctor It's a confidant. It's somebody who’s going to help you traverse your life. As you say, back in the days, when you'd find a doctor in the local community that was there for 30 years, they understood your family history. They're are an integral part of the community. Locums play a role, but it shouldn't be this process that we have at the moment where the incentive’s there to not do that, but to get paid a significantly larger sum of money to become a locum.
PEDLER: And it's hard, every time you go in you see a different person. I mean, I understand that that's an issue, but it can be so difficult to, you spend half the appointment, you almost need a double appointment every time because you've got to explain your health history at the start, even though it's up there on the screen. If people want to fill out this survey, which I can guarantee that they'll be very interested in at least taking a look at, where can they find it?
GROGAN: If people go onto my Facebook page, which is Senator Grogan. If they just search for that. It's a very short survey. It has some, just some quick questions and then an opportunity to provide further commentary, you know, in the open text box. Or people can, people can email if that's easier for them. And the email address is Senator.Grogan@aph.gov.au.
The more information we get, the more personal stories we get, the richer that the evidence that can be provided to this committee. It is a critical inquiry. The health and the access to GP’s is so important to local communities that I’d really liked to see as many people as possible contribute to this inquiry.
PEDLER: Senator, thank you.
GROGAN: Thank you very much, Emma.
PEDLER: And good luck. To find the details of that survey - if you search in Facebook for Senator Grogan, or as she said there, you can email Senator Grogan. Find the email details, they’re very easy to find on the internet. You're listening to ABC radio.