AMA Queensland may have changes leadership, but will continue to chart a course outside of the federation.
It’s been six months since AMA Queensland split with the federation, and it appears that the family is no closer to reuniting.
Hervey Bay GP Dr Nick Yim, who oversaw the sudden divorce in December last year, has now officially handed over the presidential reins to Brisbane-based emergency doctor Associate Professor Erica Gannon.
Dr Sarah Coll, the second woman in Queensland to have become a fellow of orthopaedic surgery, was also sworn in as vice president.
Professor Gannon told The Medical Republic that securing Queensland’s medical workforce was her top priority going forward.
“Queensland needs more doctors, and we need a plan to get them there,” she said.
“[We need] to make sure that we’ve got enough medical students and associated university places for those students to go to, particularly for our rural and regional areas.
“… We need to be able to have positions supporting our local graduates. We need to make sure that we’re working with the federal and state governments and the medical colleges to support more specialist places, so that we can get those specialists to where they’re needed.”
She said she also wanted to ensure that preventative healthcare and mental healthcare services were supported, and that doctors could practice free from physical and psychological harm.
But there is an elephant in the proverbial consult room when it comes to AMAQ’s advocacy.
As of 1 January this year, AMAQ membership and AMA Federal membership are separate.
In all other jurisdictions, membership of the local state or territory AMA automatically grants membership to the federal AMA.
Some of the smaller states like Tasmania and the Northern Territory have AMAs which are official branches of the federal organisation, but most of the larger state AMAs are separate entities which predate the federation by decades.
The purpose of the federation is to advocate at a federal level.
While all doctors are affected by decisions made at the federal level, it’s mostly the non-GP specialists who require representation at the state level; GPs do not tend to be directly employed by state health services.
This is what makes the AMAQ/AMA federal split particularly tricky for Queensland-based general practitioners.
Professor Gannon said that GPs would not be left behind under her leadership.
“GPs are very close to ED in terms of our colleges, and we face similar challenges,” she said.
“We both have very common, but slightly different roles. We’re both very generalist. We have a lot of knowledge in medicines, and we treat elderly and young patients alike.
“The main difference from a GP perspective is you’ve got that continuity of care, cradle to grave involvement across a patient’s healthcare needs throughout their lifetime.
“GPs are doing this in an environment where Medicare rebates haven’t really kept up with costs, so from a Queensland perspective, we want to be able to work with the government and hope that they stop blaming doctors for their failure to fund healthcare systems.”
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When asked whether she would be looking to reconcile with the AMA Federal, Professor Gannon said the AMAQ wished “to be able to advocate directly for what Queensland needs, free from any interstate priorities”.
“Queensland is very unique in that we’re quite a decentralised state, so different EDs across our state have differing needs and different patient cohorts,” Professor Gannon said.
“Metropolitan EDs will see a very different patient presentation to someone out like Mount Isa or Central Queensland, where access to specialists and healthcare needs are going to be vastly different.
“Sometimes the priorities that are in the national capital are not the priorities that represent Queensland as a whole.
“From that point of view, sometimes those policies from a Canberra perspective can fall short, particularly respect to our hospitals, our private practices, and then ultimately our patient outcomes.
“Regional Queenslanders really need to be able to get that life-saving treatment in their local hospital for things that they need to access, and healthcare should never depend on your postcode.”
