A federal politician’s ‘disappointing political stunt’ will likely increase patient aggression toward general practice staff in the island state.
AMA Tasmania is calling out federal Labor member for Franklin Julie Collins for “naming and shaming” non-bulk billing clinics in a political flyer sent to constituents earlier this week.
According to the state medical association, and evidenced in a since-deleted Facebook post, the flyer contained a list specifically naming the 100% bulk billing clinics and the “not yet 100% bulk billing” clinics in the area.
“This is politicians playing politics and putting the pressure on … or even implying that [GPs] should accept universal bulk billing,” AMA Tasmania president Dr Michael Lumsden-Steel told The Medical Republic.
“The reality is – and I can’t say this any clearer – we support private practitioners, and that includes general practitioners, who are a private specialist, setting their own fee.”
AMA Tasmania is now calling on Ms Collins to publicly apologise to each of the clinics named in the flyer, and has raised concerns that patients will take out their anger on general practice staff.
She is not the only parliamentarian to target non-bulk billing GPs in recent months.
In March, images circulated on social media of a letter from a federal politician to a practice saying constituents had “shared their disappointment” that it had not shifted to bulk billing “as it would better serve the community and … patients”.
Health minister Mark Butler even told industry publication NewsGP that “of course” local MPs would be speaking to doctors about the benefits of bulk billing.
“The government needs to be ashamed,” Dr Lumsden-Steel said.
“The politicians are trying to turn patients on GPs and make GPs out to be the villains because they’re not accepting the bulk billing PIP fees.
“I’d like that narrative to be flipped. The politicians are the villains here because they have failed to ensure that the patient rebate has been indexed to reflect the cost of care.”
Dr Lumsden-Steel said he was concerned that incidents like these would further discourage junior doctors from pursuing general practice.
“They’re seeing GPs being kicked left, right and centre over politics and government ideology, and that’s going to turn them off being general practitioners,” he said.
“My concern is, we’ll end up with those [patients] that can afford to pay to see a GP, who is their family medicine specialist … from cradle to grave. And then there’ll be everyone else who receives fragmented care, which is provided by goodness-knows-who, because we don’t have enough GPs.
“And right now, that’s on the government.”
