Small rural towns will attract subsidies of up to $60,000 to attract and keep doctors in a massive win from News Corp Australia’s Health the Bush campaign. In a Robin Hood style overhaul of the botched $113 million General Practice Rural Incentive Payment Scheme, doctors in 14 large towns like Cairns will be stripped of subsidies. The money saved from enticing doctors to large coastal towns will instead be put towards much larger subsidies to attract doctors to tiny towns like Gundagai, Kingaroy, Echuca and Northam. Under a revamp of the scheme to be announced by Assistant Minister for Health Fiona Nash on Sunday, subsidies for towns with a population of less than 5,000 will jump by between $4,000 and $13,000 a year. Under the old scheme, the maximum subsidy available to a doctor working in a very remote area for five years was $47,000. That will jump to $60,000 after the new scheme begins in July. Currently doctors only have to work in a town for six months to begin receiving subsidies; now, they will have to spend at least two years before the allowance flows. The increases for 450 towns were a key demand in News Corp Australia’s Health the Bush campaign aimed at improving poor health systems in the bush that see rural residents die three years earlier than those in the city. STATE BY STATE Doctors in the tiny town of Gundagai NSW will see their subsidies nearly double from $12,000 to $23,000 after they serve for five years. Doctors in the tiny town of Rutherglen Victoria will see their subsidies nearly double from $12,000 to $23,000 after they serve for five years. Doctors in the tiny town of Gleneagle in Queensland will see their subsidies increase from $12,000 to $18,000 after five years service. Doctors in Ceduna, South Australia will see their subsidies increase from $47,000 to $60,000 after five years service. Doctors in Strahan Tasmania will see their subsidies increase from $27,000 to $35,000 after five years service. Doctors in the tiny town of Northam in Queensland will see their subsidies increase from $12,000 to $18,000 after five years service. REVAMPED SCHEME Under the existing system introduced by the previous Labor Government in 2010, 5706 doctors got taxpayer subsidies to move to towns with a population over 50,000. Some $50 million was being used to pay incentives for doctors to live in very large regional cities, including Townsville (population 175,000) and Cairns (population 145,000). They received the same $30,000 relocation grant and $18,000-a-year retention incentive as doctors in Hay and Deniliquin in NSW, Ingham and Tully in Queensland and Warnertown in South Australia. Doctors who relocated to Hobart (population 106,153) and Launceston got the same $15,000 relocation grant and $12,000 a year retention grant as doctors who moved to Tumut in NSW (population 6,000) or Benalla in Victoria (population 9,328). “The new GPRIP system has redirected money to attract more doctors to rural areas that have genuine difficulty attracting and retaining doctors,” Minister Nash said. “It makes more sense to use that money to attract doctors to where the greatest shortages are — small rural and remote communities, not big regional cities. “We’ve taken that money which was being used to attract doctors to Cairns and Townsville and we’re using it to get doctors to towns like Cowra and Cobram. More than 100 towns will benefit from increased incentive payments to attract doctors. Towns that will lose access to any subsidies under the scheme include Albury, Darwin, Cairns, Hervey Bay, Townsville, Hobart, Mackay, Rockhampton, Ballarat and Bunbury. The new GP rural incentive payment will not be available to doctors working in large regional cities with a population of more than 50,000. Source
