{"id":326845,"date":"2022-11-24T15:00:34","date_gmt":"2022-11-24T05:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=326845"},"modified":"2022-11-24T19:07:14","modified_gmt":"2022-11-24T09:07:14","slug":"coast-city-lure-foreign-gps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2022\/11\/24\/coast-city-lure-foreign-gps\/","title":{"rendered":"Coast, City Lure Foreign GPs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Member for Maranoa David Littleproud<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

November 24, 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nationals leader David Littleproud has blamed Federal Government changes to the Distribution Priority Area (DPA) scheme for the shortage of GPs in his electorate.<\/p>\n

Mr Littleproud, the Member for Maranoa, said Kingaroy GPs were at capacity and would not accept new patients.<\/p>\n

“Kingaroy Hospital has received a $92.5 million upgrade but cannot operate at capacity due to staff shortages,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Littleproud said international medical graduates previously needed to work in a DPA – such as Kingaroy – for at least 10 years to be eligible for Medicare, but an expansion of the DPA scheme meant they could now be recruited in many metropolitan areas.<\/p>\n

As a result, regional electorates such as Maranoa were missing out, he said.<\/p>\n

An analysis of DPA classifications shows that multiple catchments have changed status in the past 12 months.<\/strong><\/p>\n

New areas include Hobart Inner and Hobart North-East in Tasmania; Townsville, Lowood, Springfield-Redbank and Maleny-Mapleton in Queensland; and Wollongong, Gosford, Cessnock Region and Newcastle in NSW.<\/p>\n

Partial DPA status had also been granted to Queensland areas such as Kenmore-Brookfield-Moggill, Nambour, Narangba-Burpengary and Mudgeeraba-Tallebudgera.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince expanding the DPAs, Labor has made it harder for regional and rural areas to attract international GPs,” Mr Littleproud said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe result is that regional and rural communities are hurting and, sadly, the risk to the health of locals in Maranoa is enormous.\u201d<\/p>\n