Health Dr Rene Dostal
Illawarra Mercury
Tuesday May 9, 2006
GENERAL practitioner Rene Dostal knows the pivotal role an experienced nurse can play in general practice.
Dr Dostal, chairman of the Illawarra Division of General Practice, would like to see the Federal Government commit to more practice nurses. He wants the government subsidy program for employment of nurses in general practice expanded to take in all general practices. The subsidy now is only available to practices in rural areas."Nurses can enhance the services of general practice and assist with GP shortages - a nationwide issue," he said.Second on his wish list is inclusion of areas such as Wollongong in grants schemes from which they are excluded."Areas like Wollongong have been largely forgotten by government," Dr Dostal said."Over the years GPs practising, or wishing to practise, in this and similar areas have been unable to access relocation and amalgamation grants, and have been restricted in their ability to employ overseas-trained doctors."Incentives were needed for psychiatrists to set up outside capital cities.He would also like an expansion of the Government's Better Outcomes in Mental Health initiative so that more GPs could refer patients to psychologists, and organisations like Divisions of General Practice could fund more psychologist positions.The Government needed to financially support an advanced role for teams of health professionals, led by GPs, to provide services such as health monitoring, management of patients in the community, and health screening.This could be by creating adequately-funded Medicare item numbers for such activities, Dr Dostal said. Also, Divisions of General Practice needed better funding to deliver the sort of integrated health programs they were capable of.
© 2006 Illawarra Mercury