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Rural GP Package Drowns in Bureaucracy
Rural GP Package Drowns in Bureaucracy
Friday 30 Aug 2002
The Government's much-vaunted rural GP assistance package of $32 million is floundering in a sea of bureaucracy, ACT Rural Affairs Spokesman Gerry Eckhoff said today.
"The scheme was designed to recognise the cost of locums to rural practices, and to ensure rural GPs had time away from on-call work.
"What has predictably happened is the capture of the scheme by bureaucrats who are hell-bent on making this money impossible to access.
"GPs are shaking their heads and walking away from the Government's only answer to the rural health crisis. Ten million dollars a year is an insultingly small sum, and now bureaucracy is blocking access to even that.
"New Associate Health Minister Damian O'Connor must act decisively and direct DHBs to release this money for its intended purpose. All he has to do is pick up the phone, and I'll tell him what to do," Mr Eckhoff said.
Ends
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