Instead of asking how to fix the rural GP shortage, we should look at the bigger picture and ask how nurse practitioners could work to their full capacity.
Multiple doctors’ organisations, led by the Australian Medical Association, and a major farm lobby have called on the federal government to boost Australia’s climate change ambition.
Only pharmacists can own a pharmacy and you can’t set one up within 1.5km of an existing one. But calls to loosen these rules could give health companies a green light to set up more chemist chains.
Scare campaigns only work if there is some anxiety to build on. Labor’s Medicare campaign plugged into a long history of Coalition ambivalence – or open hostility – towards Medicare.
The AMA has campaigned heavily on the Medicare rebate freeze, pointing out its potential impact on patient access if out-of-pocket costs were to increase.
Labor will lift the rebate freeze from 2017, while under the Coalition, GPs will be paid the same amount for delivering health services in 2020 as they were in 2014. So what does this mean for patients?
The Australian Medical Association’s annual Public Hospital Report Card says hospitals are facing “a growing funding crisis” – with their performance virtually stagnant.
The recent decision to outsource production of the journal to international publishing company Elsevier – and the route it took to get there – made my position untenable.
An Australian Medical Association report showing the nation’s public hospitals face a funding “black hole” because of the federal government’s cuts gives premiers strong ammunition for their Friday meeting with Tony Abbott.
In the government’s latest “scraping away the barnacles” of unpopular and blocked policies, prime minister Tony Abbott and health minister Peter Dutton have announced they’re abandoning the plan to have…
The government has stepped back from its A$7 proposed co-payment for visiting the GP but still aims to skin the Medicare cat, putting the onus on doctors to send a $5 price signal to non-concessional patients…
More than 80% of Australian paediatricians believe mandatory detention of asylum seeker children constitutes child abuse, according to survey results published today in the Medical Journal of Australia…
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is considering whether to approve the latest Medicines Australia code of conduct for pharmaceutical companies. The code lays out disclosure requirements…
Jane Hall, University of Technology Sydney and Kees Van Gool, University of Technology Sydney
Bulk billing without restrictions has been a feature of the Australian health system since the introduction of Medicare in 1984. It is particularly important in general practice, as it means any Australian…
The Australian Medical Association has released its alternative to the budget’s controversial $7 Medicare co-payment plan that would protect pensioners and children, but raise only $60 million in revenue…
The Australian Medical Association has released a statement once again affirming that there is no evidence that wind farms harm human health. Geoffrey Dobb, chair of the AMA’s Public Health Committee…
Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, Haematologist/BMT Physician, Royal North Shore Hospital and Director, Praxis Australia, University of Sydney
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne