NSW health minister Reba Meagher’s new advertising campaign to encourage people to seek treatments from the GPs in order to free up hospital emergency departments is good – in theory.
The new campaign, which was designed by and features emergency departments specialists, is not about discouraging people from seeking medical help.
Rather, it is about encouraging people to think about how serious their condition is, and making the appropriate decision about where to go for treatment.
Coincidentally, the advertisement was filmed at Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital and featured Hunter doctors, nurses and paramedics.
According to Ms Meagher, 2.3 million people visited an emergency department in NSW last year – 8 per cent up on the previous year.
So what’s wrong with the campaign?
It’s success hinges on people being able to see a doctor when they are sick.
Newcomers to this city know only too well that many GPs no longer accept new patients.
Doctors are often booked out days, sometimes weeks, in advance, and only keep a few appointments open for urgent cases.
Phone many of these medical centres and ask for advice and they will tell you; one, go through the yellow pages and try to find another surgery; or, two, go to the emergency department.
Waiting days for an appointment or travelling further afield, for example Newcastle, in search of a doctor is clearly not acceptable.
Nor is clogging up the emergency department with urgent vases.
People who are ill, especially children and the elderly, need to be able access doctors.
In today’s Mercury we read that even more land surrounding Maitland has been identified for future development.
We need more roads and more schools.
And we need more doctors and a new hospital.
It’s not rocket science to see that the Iemma Government needs to do more to attract doctors to the area.
If it doesn’t then its latest advertising campaign will be a total waste of taxpayers’ money.