The AMA SA has released its election scorecard, and neither major party got a pass.
It is election eve in South Australia, and the state AMA has unveiled its election scorecard, breaking down where each major party’s commitments align with the AMA SA’s projections for effective healthcare reform.
Organised into a traffic light system, AMA SA has listed seven key priorities for this election.
These were:
- Increasing access to primary care,
- Eliminate payroll tax on private medical practices,
- Build and sustain rural health services,
- Reduce elective surgery and outpatient waiting lists,
- Strengthen community mental health services,
- Support people with dignity as they age and at the end of life, and
- Introduce greater preventive health supports.
Only two of AMA SA’s priorities were greenlit by a major party; the SA Liberal Party committed to both increased access to after-hours primary care and to abolishing payroll tax on GP services.
The SA Liberal Party, however, also received the most ‘red lights’ from failing to meet election demands on aged care, mental health services and reducing elective surgery and outpatient waiting lists.
“Where we found both sides didn’t come up to the standard was that all of the announcements didn’t have targets, didn’t have a timeline and didn’t have transparent milestones,” AMA SA president Associate Professor Peter Subramaniam told The Medical Republic.
“It makes it difficult for us as doctors to judge whether these policies are likely to work or not.
“It’s a little bit of a shame unfortunately, that health policy gets rolled out in a rush at the eve of an election.
“It makes it difficult for us to actually assess what those policies actually mean for the overall health system.”
The SA Labor party received two ‘red lights’ as part of the scorecard, on the topics of payroll tax and outpatient waiting lists.
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This is because it has made no specific announcements made thus far on those two topics.
All of the current Labor Party health stances have been met with a ‘yellow light’ rating, indicating that the potential reforms are still yet to be assessed for effectiveness.
Attracting international medical graduates to the state has also been a priority of AMA SA, with the Liberal Party committing to funding attraction initiatives for IMGs.
“The [Labor] government’s building additional medical schools, a medical school and in Mount Gambier,” Professor Subramaniam told TMR.
“They were silent during the election announcements on any specific things that they would offer for IMGs.
“It doesn’t mean that they haven’t thought of it, they just haven’t announced it.
“What we’re saying here in the AMA in South Australia is that you have to target your investment.”
