Naracoorte Hospital

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:31): My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister advise if locum doctors are still being used to provide care at the Naracoorte hospital? With your leave, Mr Speaker, and the leave the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: Doctors from the adjacent Kincraig Medical Clinic used to provide on-call services at the hospital; however, that contract has not been renewed.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:31): I thank the member for MacKillop for his question and his interest in all health services in his electorate and particularly in the Naracoorte area. As I am sure the member and other members may know, the arrangement between SA Health and the Limestone Coast Local Health Network and the Kincraig Medical Clinic was terminated under the previous government.

Since then, the doctors from the GP practice have not been regularly used to provide those emergency medical services at the Naracoorte hospital. They have been engaged to provide a variety of other services. In particular, obstetric services is one of the critical services that they help to provide for Naracoorte in supporting birthing in that community, and we certainly thank them for that.

We took the approach when we came into government that we wanted to repair relationships with general practitioners in country South Australia, and Naracoorte was one of those areas across the state where we had seen a breakdown of relationships between the local health network and general practitioners. There are a number of others. In particular, in the member for Stuart's electorate there had been a number of those areas where we had seen a breakdown.

Our leadership of those local health networks now is very different, and we have a significant outreach and communication dialogue with those general practitioners. We have a much better relationship in Naracoorte with the GPs than what we did previously. We stand ready to work with them in terms of if they can provide general practitioner support to the emergency department. I understand that that has happened on occasions, so they do provide that support at some stages when there is need for them to do so. At this stage, they are not looking to do that return on a permanent basis to provide that support, but I think we stand willing to work with them if that could be the case into the future.

Obviously, they have workforce pressures, as other general practitioners across the state do. That is why we are also taking a number of meaningful steps in terms of trying to address workforce pressures for general practitioners and for our regional workforce across the state. One of those key areas which I am always very keen to talk about is the work that we are doing in terms of the Single Employer Model. This rolled out for the second time in Australia here in South Australia, in Riverland through the Riverland Academy of Clinical Excellence. That has been a very successful program.

We have been able to recruit new doctors into that program for a five-year course of study, working between SA Health hospitals and general practices. That has seen significant demand from doctors in the Riverland area and it is a real bright spot in the country in terms of our medical workforce supply because of that. We now have agreement from the federal government to expand that to other areas across the state and that is now rolling out for the first time this year in other areas across the state as well. We are very hopeful that that is going to be one key component in terms of making it more attractive for people to undertake studies so as to become a rural GP and undertake rural generalism.

The other very positive element is the work that Flinders Medical Centre is doing. In particular, on the Limestone Coast but also in the Riverland, Flinders University now has dedicated extra places, and is using some of its existing places in medicine, devoted to people undertaking their entire degree based in regional areas. So people can now do the entirety of their medical training based in regional areas as opposed to having to go and do it all in the city and then, after a decade of working and living in the city, we ask people to move to regional South Australia. That has been turned on its head now and we think that that is going to be a really positive development.