The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) welcomes the federal government's acknowledgment last week that the proposed National Health and Hospitals Network reform would take into account all local costs in rural areas and look at a form of national block funding able to underpin the continuation of smaller rural hospitals in the future if activity-based funding does not work.

Dr Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Chair of the RACGP's National Rural Faculty, said that rural and remote hospitals are often seen as the hub of their communities.

"Rural hospitals are valued by their communities and, in many cases, the community has been instrumental in raising funds for the hospital buildings and equipment.

"The RACGP recognises that the attraction to work in rural communities for many rural doctors is having access to the local hospital to provide continuity of care for their patients, as well as where appropriate providing advanced rural skills such as anaesthetics, surgery and obstetrics," she said

Dr Kirkpatrick said that the government needed to clarify whether activity based funding will be introduced first and must be seen to fail before the block funding is introduced.

"Without the local hospitals, some rural doctors would decide to leave their community because they will no longer able to provide the services, which attracted them to the community and provided them with job satisfaction.

"Rural hospitals can be one of the larger employers in many communities, so the loss of the hospital not only impacts the level of care that can be provided in the community, but can also lead to unemployment and population drift from the community," she said.

The college is committed to work with all levels of government to improve access to high quality care to better meet the needs of our local communities. To read the RACGP 2010/2011 Federal Budget submission in detail, visit here.

Source
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners