Long waitlists to see specialists in the Hunter and statewide raise questions about why some doctors are turning away from the public health system, GP groups say.
Dr Fiona Van Leeuwen, chair of the Hunter General Practitioners Association, said "a lot of specialists used to work in the public and private system".
"Now we have many more specialists only working privately."
Specialists historically considered it their duty to contribute to the public system.
"They would be trained by the public system and they felt it was their responsibility to give back," she said.
"Why aren't they wanting to work in the public hospital system now? There's a good question.
"Somehow we need to build a public health system where everybody wants to work."
Dr Van Leeuwen said the public system was "a hotbed of fascinating work professionally and academically".
"If it was all pulled together really well, it'd work brilliantly for everybody."
Australian Medical Association [AMA] president Dr Michael Bonning said "we have seen significant waiting lists for surgery since COVID".
"There are many factors causing this, including attracting and retaining the workforce in public hospitals," Dr Bonning said.
He added that the government is "constrained by the public sector wages cap".
Dr Bonning said public hospitals had "fewer and fewer outpatient clinics", where specialists see public patients.
This had occurred "over a long period of time", as governments failed to resource the public hospital system to meet demand.
"There has been a lack of recruitment," he said.
Despite this, he said there "continues to be more and more demand" for specialists.
The Herald reported on Saturday that long waits to see ENT [ear, nose and throat] specialists in the Hunter's public hospital system had pushed the family of Mayfield boy Cassius Button into private health insurance.
Dr Bonning said he had heard stories of "people raiding their super or paying for the surgery privately, without private insurance".
The Herald was also told about a Newcastle person who needed surgery and had private insurance, but couldn't afford the $500 excess on the policy.
"Lots of people just suffer and struggle with daily pain," Dr Bonning said.
"At the same time, everyone in the health system continues to work hard. We have surgeons who work six days a week."
The Minns government announced the NSW Surgical Care Taskforce in March to tackle the state's elective surgery waiting list.
The taskforce, which aims to improve surgical services and reduce the state's elective surgery waiting list, met for the first time last week.
"It is made up of a group of leading clinical, logistics and operations experts which will look at measures to reduce the backlog of elective surgeries," NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said.
"I've asked the taskforce to report back to me in three months to update me on its progress."
Professor Neil Merrett, who will chair the taskforce, said it will examine a range of strategies aimed at reducing the number of people who wait longer than clinically recommended for their surgery.
