GP clinics unjustified
GP clinics unjustified
Dr Kerri Parnell
No prizes for detecting an election in the wind in NSW with an opposition leader giving press conferences in his speedos while the Premier madly announces things he hopes will give him the edge. Last week it was digital mammograms, something about the Pap smear registry, 2500 more nurses and plans to plonk twelve extra GP clinics in emergencey departments.
This latter idea has worked well in some areas for specific reasons, such as the lack of an after-hours deputising service leaving GPs to provide after hours care or lose accreditation points.
Premier Iemma hopes GP clinics will solve two problems – perceived public desire for extended-hour medicine and ED overcrowding.
“If you’ve got a sick child late at night, and you’re looking for a doctor, often the only place you can get that service is an emergency department at a hospital”, the fully-clothed Mr Iemma told journalists.
Maybe I'm wrong but I suspect late night GPs a "nice-to-have" not a necessity. Given access to sensible phone advice, such as from a children’s hospital, few children can’t wait until morning, and the ED isn’t a bad place for this group. Finding quality GPs to work in the clinics will be challenging to say the least.
On ED overcrowding, a letter to a newspaper last week put it well: GP clinics won’t fix ED overcrowding because a lack of GP care isn’t the problem. Dr Tony Joseph, NSW chairman of the emergency medicine college says most patients present appropriately to EDs, where the real problem is access block due to a shortage of inpatient beds.
6minutes suspects that emergency physicians also fear that a drop in numbers will mean less dollars for their department.
In the spirit of collegiality, I’ll let Dr Joseph’s parting shot at GPs – “an expensive and untrained locum workforce” - go through to the keeper.
Dr Kerri Parnell
No prizes for detecting an election in the wind in NSW with an opposition leader giving press conferences in his speedos while the Premier madly announces things he hopes will give him the edge. Last week it was digital mammograms, something about the Pap smear registry, 2500 more nurses and plans to plonk twelve extra GP clinics in emergencey departments.
This latter idea has worked well in some areas for specific reasons, such as the lack of an after-hours deputising service leaving GPs to provide after hours care or lose accreditation points.
Premier Iemma hopes GP clinics will solve two problems – perceived public desire for extended-hour medicine and ED overcrowding.
“If you’ve got a sick child late at night, and you’re looking for a doctor, often the only place you can get that service is an emergency department at a hospital”, the fully-clothed Mr Iemma told journalists.
Maybe I'm wrong but I suspect late night GPs a "nice-to-have" not a necessity. Given access to sensible phone advice, such as from a children’s hospital, few children can’t wait until morning, and the ED isn’t a bad place for this group. Finding quality GPs to work in the clinics will be challenging to say the least.
On ED overcrowding, a letter to a newspaper last week put it well: GP clinics won’t fix ED overcrowding because a lack of GP care isn’t the problem. Dr Tony Joseph, NSW chairman of the emergency medicine college says most patients present appropriately to EDs, where the real problem is access block due to a shortage of inpatient beds.
6minutes suspects that emergency physicians also fear that a drop in numbers will mean less dollars for their department.
In the spirit of collegiality, I’ll let Dr Joseph’s parting shot at GPs – “an expensive and untrained locum workforce” - go through to the keeper.
Labels: GP clinic
posted by ozdocblog at 8:57 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home