Gilmore MP Fiona Phillips is urging the Morrison government to do more when it comes to the shortage of GPs in regional communities - pointing to the shortage of GPs in Sanctuary Point as an example of what was happening around the country.
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In a speech in Parliament on Monday, Mrs Phillips called on Minister for Regional Health Mark Coulton to include Sanctuary Point as a GP distribution priority area.
"[Sanctuary Point has] one last doctor retiring and no-one to take up the reins," she said.
"The Minister for Regional Health says our area is not a distribution area - but the minister wouldn't know two coddles worth about my area.
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Mrs Phillips said her electorate had an elderly and vulnerable population with no public transport.
"In fact, the minister was so galling as to say that there are many areas of Australia that are in far greater need of GPs," she said.
"What will it take?"
She said Mr Coulton wants GPs to leave before the government will step in.
"That's what his office said to a local GP in 2020. They said, 'Perhaps you will become a distribution priority area again in a year or two if the number of GPs drops," said Mrs Phillips.
She said it was not good enough for "the government to say they would just let the numbers drop and then maybe we might change the classification".
"It is beyond time for the government to step up and do its job.
"Where is the workforce planning over time backed up by good federal policy to ensure we have an adequate number of GPs?" she asked.