Well done John and good luck with the meeting. Concrete proposals like this make an immense contribution on the ground where help is urgently needed.
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Mackenzie Sent: Saturday, 24 February 2007 9:59 PM To: General Practice Computing Group Talk Subject: Re: [GPCG_TALK] Re: Rural GP shortage - solution >I could easily see a scenario where the local GP gets called regardless, you >would need to be fairly clear that the GPassist service needs to be called >first. > >There is a strong culture within the healthcare industry that the doctor's >lifestyle/sleep/sanity is not important, many nurses I've met hotly defend >their 'right' to have me out of bed whenever they choose. In some places, >this could be very hard to change. > You are quite right, Ian, and this is where the culture and protocol must be changed. Patients in rural communities must ring or attend the small rural hospital as first port of call for any after hours concerns - there is no direct contact between patient and rural GP. This already happens in many rural communities (unlike when I was in Terang, Vic, in 1976 and received a call from a patient after midnight on a bitter winter's night, which when I attended I found that I was only needed for the purpose of taxiing the patient back to her home - yes, this really happened). The other cultural change will be that the rural hospital RN will not be allowed to ring the local GP after hours, but must ring the GPassist-type doctor. And only the GP-assist doctor can ring the "2nd on-call" local GP in the uncommon circumstances that an on-the-spot GP is really needed. In fact, this chain-of-command could be enforced by the local GP not having his land-line phone or mobile able to receive calls after hours, but instead the local GP would leave his computer on and need to be contacted by GPassist using a "silent" VoIP contact known only to GPassist. I am sure that this would work and greatly relieve the burden of after hours cover on rural GPs. My local federal MP, Greg Hunt, is meeting with me tomorrow (Sunday !) so that I can pass on details of this proposal. He is a good MP, intelligent and interested especially in the rural GP crisis (his partner/wife is an RN) and in anyone who has solutions and not just whinges. John Mac _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
