Victoria has staged a last-minute intervention in the federal election campaign, accusing the Morrison government of failing to invest in enough general practitioners for the state.
According to data provided to Guardian Australia by the Victorian government, the increase in public sector doctors between 2014 and 2021 had outstripped the growth in GPs in the state by more than 17%.
The health minister, Martin Foley, said one reason the state’s emergency departments were under so much pressure was because people were not able to get in to see GPs in a timely manner.
In the seven-year period, there was a 44% increase in doctors working in the public health system, a 27% increase in nurses and a 24% increase in other health staff, such as allied health workers.
There were now a total of 104,236 health care workers across Victoria’s public health system.
Meanwhile, figures from the federal Department of Health website show there had been a 26% increase in full-time-equivalent GPs in Victoria – from 6,236 in 2014 to 7,878 in 2021.
Foley said the state was seeing record demand on its public health system.
“To help ease that pressure, it’s never been more important for Victorians to be able to easily access GPs in their local community,” he said.
“The Morrison government has continually failed to support our GPs by investing in and managing primary care, leading to extra pressure being placed on the public hospital system.”
Foley pointed to the the state’s budget handed down earlier this month, which included $12bn to build and expand hospitals, hire 7,000 new healthcare workers, clear the elective surgery backlog and help more people get care at home.
“It’s time for Scott Morrison to step up and play his part – to commit to properly fund Victorian GPs and other primary care providers rather than continuing with his deafening silence,” he said.
In Queensland, the growth in numbers of full-time-equivalent GPs has been similar to that in Victoria; increasing from 5,165 in 2014 to 6,566 in 2021, or about 26% in seven years.
The state’s deputy premier, Steven Miles, said this week that health workers in Queensland hospitals were “getting smashed” and the cause was an “absolute collapse” in primary care.
“Lots and lots of people ... can’t get to see a GP, even if they have a regular GP (and) many GPs are declining to see people with respiratory illnesses, sometimes before they get a Covid test, sometimes not at all, and that is driving lots and lots more people to our emergency departments,” he said.
“It’s also seeing lots of people delay care and so then when they go to get care, their condition is much more acute and at that point in time they do need the specialist services of our emergency departments.”
Like in Victoria, staffing levels and rosters at Queensland hospitals were also hampered by Covid-19 cases among health workers. The situation has created a concern that public hospitals will be badly affected during the coming flu season.
“Now that we have both Covid endemic in the community as well as flu ... that is driving a massive peak in demand on our emergency departments,” Miles said.
Victoria is also bracing for its first proper flu season in three years, with $54.9m to be spent on setting up modular emergency departments at Casey hospital in Berwick, Northern hospital in Epping and Werribee Mercy hospital.
Individual units will be built off-site and are expected to be completed in June, allowing for an additional 24 beds at the Werribee Mercy hospital and 12 beds at both Northern and Casey hospitals.
At a federal level, few significant reforms to health have been announced by either of the major parties during the election campaign, though Labor has promised $970m investment in primary health and a boost for infrastructure upgrades in GP practices.
The issue of hospital funding also hasn’t been resolved. State and territory leaders, including Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, have been pushing the federal government to permanently lift the commonwealth’s funding guarantee to a 50-50 funding split when the current arrangement ends.
Andrews has said when the current pandemic-level hospital funding agreement ended in September, the state faced an effective cut of $1.5bn.
“No matter who wins the federal election, these issues are not going away,” he said earlier this month.
Dr Sarah Whitelaw, an emergency medicine physician at the Royal Melbourne hospital and Australian Medical Association (AMA) federal council member, said investment in GPs would help alleviate pressures on hospitals.
“It isn’t correct to say that the acute hospital crisis is due to a problem only with general practice or that we don’t need a significant increase in capacity, reform and funding for our public hospital system. But it is absolutely crucial that we have a whole system reform and GPs are incredibly important as the centre of our health system,” she said.
“They’re the most efficient use of our money. They provide preventative health care and if well supported, can manage people in aged care with really complex problems, mental health, rehab, palliative care and that will prevent patients ultimately ending up coming by ambulance to the emergency department.”
Whitelaw said it was “bizarre” health had not been a bigger focus at the election.
“The community absolutely understands how much pressure the system is under and sees it as a key priority,” she said.
