Health hubs push

By Ed Merrison
BELGRAVE and Emerald will be looked at as potential health hubs as a local GP organisation explores new avenues for attracting doctors into the hills.
Eastern Ranges GP Association (ERGPA) chief executive Kristin Michaels met La Trobe MP Jason Wood on Wednesday, 17 May to discuss strategies to encourage doctors into the region.
Mr Wood said he wanted the ERGPA to build a proposal for a “one-stop shop” in Belgrave or Upwey-Tecoma and a second one at Emerald where reception staff and facilities would be shared between doctors and federal money used for equipment and facilities.
Ms Michaels welcomed the idea and spoke of the possibility of adding a GP service to Belgrave’s Ranges Community Health.
“Ideally we’d like to see Belgrave as some kind of health precinct,” she said.
Mr Wood said he also wanted the group to put together a proposal for federal funding towards a comprehensive recruitment package aimed at attracting interns and inner suburban doctors.
In addition, Mr Wood said he was interested in Ms Michaels’s recent claim that a change to the region’s Rural, Remote and Metropolitan Area (RRMA) rating would be the most important measure in tackling the GP shortage.
The hills currently have a RRMA 1 classification, the same as inner city suburbs such as Toorak and Richmond.
Ms Michaels said the Yarra Valley, which two years ago had its RRMA rating changed from one to five, proved a change to the RRMA rating could work for an area like the hills.
Since its reclassification the Yarra Valley has seen four overseas trained doctors move into an area containing eight practices, “a significant upping of the workforce”, according to Ms Michaels.
But while Ms Michaels said the RRMA rating could not be changed overnight, she was pleased Mr Wood agreed the hills needed to be recognised as a rural area.
“I need my powder dry to go to the (Health) minister and tell him these are my arguments and I want them coming from the doctors themselves,” Mr Wood said.
“If (the GP Association) puts up any decent proposal, I’ll go into Canberra and raise hell to get it.”