RURAL doctors across Queensland are breathing a sigh of relief after federal Health Minister Sussan Ley's shock decision to scrap planned cuts to the Medicare rebate by $20 for short doctor visits.
The newly minted health minister cut short her summer holidays to make the announcement today in the wake of a fierce backlash from medicos throughout the country.
Rural Doctors Association of Queensland president Professor Tarun Sen Gupta has welcomed today's news.
"I welcome Minister Ley’s rethink of what would have been an attack on primary care through the reduction in Medicare rebates to rural and regional people," he said.
"General practice is a very efficient part of the health system looking after people in all stages of their lives.
"We are very pleased that the minister has committed to working with the GP community. Particularly we want to see better health outcomes for rural Queenslanders by improving access to GPs."
The Abbott Government has been under fire from doctors and other medical professionals since the Medicare overhaul was announced by Ms Ley's predecessor Peter Dutton last year.
The government was also roundly criticised for failing to consult widely with medical experts before planning to implement the controversial changes this coming Monday.
Non-government senators - Jacqui Lambie, Nick Xenophon and the Motoring Enthusiast Party's Ricky Muir - had indicated they would veto the measure, backed by doctors' claims the change would leave patients out of pocket and force more cash-strapped people into already over-crowded hospital emergency departments to seek treatment and escape the cost slug.
Doctors from parts of rural Queensland have told Queensland Country Life that covering the cost for their "poorer" patients would have forced them to close their doors within the month had the changes been introduced after the weekend.
Professor Sen Gupta, who also heads medical education at James Cook University in Townsville, said the changes would have been acutely felt in rural and remote Queensland, where patients have to travel further to see doctors and have lower incomes per capita currently exacerbated by years of drought and poor commodity prices.
"The proposals were bad health policy," Professor Sen Gupta said.
"I hope this change of heart will put us back on the right track.”
Ms Ley said she was still committed to introducing price signals into Medicare including the revised $5 GP co-payment due to start July 1, but pledged to "pause, listen and consult".
"This is very much my stamp, I believe, on the portfolio – that of consulting, engaging and listening," she told reporters in Melbourne.
"I've heard, I've listened and I'm deciding to take this action now," she said.
Ms Ley said she planned to work together with the Senate and doctors to make the health sector more sustainable and said she would welcome the crossbenchers' ideas.
The backdown comes just 24 hours after Prime Minister Tony Abbott had strongly defended the measure as an "economic reform" that would lead to better patient care by busting the so-called practice of "six minute medicine" where short appointments are scheduled to maximise the number of taxpayer subsidies received.
- Additional reporting: Latika Bourke.
