People living in rural Queensland have the same burden of heart disease, diabetes and cancer as those who live in cities, but they have higher rates of mortality from those same diseases.
Dr Adam Coltzau should know. He has worked as a general practitioner in St George for the last 13 years.
A former president of the Rural Doctors Association of Queensland (RDAQ), Dr Coltzau said the distance patients needed to travel to see to medical specialists was one of the reasons rural people could have poorer outcomes.
“Country people worry about what long-term treatment will involve, in terms of travel and the time spent away from the farm and the family,” he said. “Travel is a big burden on families.”
Dr Coltzau said the arrival of telehealth, where specialists, patients and their GPs can interact over a faster version of Skype, had helped to overcome the tyranny of distance and long travel to access specialist medical advice and care.
“It’s only in the past two or three years we’ve been able to get the specialists to agree,” he said.
Country people worry about what long-term treatment will involve.
“Many of them like to examine their patient and see them in person.
“With the new rural generalist doctors on the frontline, specialists are now more confident dealing with it.
“For instance, there is a urologist in Toowoomba who is happy to do everything by teleconference. I sit in the corner and take notes and the specialist speaks directly with the patient. If he needs me to check something, I can do it. He’s confident with the system.”
Regardless of where patients are located, the golden rule remains the same: catching diseases early improves the chances of better outcomes and prevention is always preferable to the cure.
However, getting patients through the door for check-ups and screening tests is often a challenge for rural doctors, Dr Coltzau said.
"We've had a lot of success with the 'Pitstop' program. It's an excellent screening program held at big AgForce meetings and local shows,” he said.
“We check their blood pressure, do skin cancer checks and diabetes tests, among other things.”
