Qualified British GPs forced to drive taxis due to lack of work as doctors

Socialist Britain sure knows how to manage its health workforce. This amid frequent claims of a doctor shortage and long waits to see a doctor

One fully qualified GP is driving a taxi because he cannot find enough work as a doctor despite Government pledges to increase access to primary care and extend surgery opening hours. Next week 2,500 doctors will qualify as GPs and the vast majority have not found full time jobs and will have to live 'hand to mouth', the British Medical Association has warned.

It costs the taxpayer around $500,000 to train each graduate to junior doctor level and many are considering travelling abroad or working in another speciality even though there is predicted to be shortage of GPs.

Dr Alex Smallwood, chairman of the GP trainees sub-committee at the British Medical Association said the problem was rife and was a 'huge betrayal' of junior doctors who had been encouraged into general practice. He said: "Doctors will be stacking shelves, cleaning and driving taxis to make ends meet. If they can't get work as a doctor they have got to do something."

Dr Smallwood said the general perception of GPs earning anything from $200,000 to $500,000 was nowhere near reality for many. He said there are huge numbers of under-employed GPs who can only get one and half or two days work a week. Under the new GP contract there is little incentive for a partner in a practice to take on another partner to expand the practice or replace one who leaves. Instead, in order to maintain their own income and that of the practice, the partners take on a salaried doctor on around $100,000 to $120,000 full time, but most are employed only part-time and earn significantly less. Other practices are based in such old premises that they physically do not have the room for more doctors. The problem is risking the future of general practice as the best and brightest candidates either enter other specialisms or leave to work as a GP abroad, he said.

Some areas of the country are worse than others, with virtually no partnerships on offer in London whereas the situation is not so bad in poorer areas in the North of England.

Dr Smallwood said: "I can't say it is greed but there is an element of being unfair to younger colleagues. There is a certain amount of protectionism from some doctors. "There are vast numbers of people who can't get full time work and it is not just about getting a partnership it is about getting any job. There is a panic." He said the trend of taking on salaried part-time GPs will affect patient care as it will mean they are less likely to see the same doctor with whom they can build up a trusting relationship. Dr Smallwood said it is vital that a scheme where the upfront costs of taking on a partner are paid is reinstated.

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Australia: War hero's tragic wait

Insufficient capacity for emergencies set aside. Cairns has lots of ambulances but most were acting as glorified taxis. Sending one down the mountain range from far-away Kuranda is absurd

A World War II Digger had to wait more than two hours for an ambulance the day he died this week. Changi prison camp survivor Bob Mutton, who lived in the city on Sheridan St, endured a two-hour-and-five-minute wait on Monday while he struggled to breathe. He died hours after finally arriving at Cairns Base Hospital.

Stretched to the limit, the Queensland Ambulance Service dispatched a vehicle from Kuranda, 25km northwest of Cairns, after Mr Mutton's first ambulance was diverted to a "higher priority case" of a man having a seizure. It took 54 minutes for the first ambulance to be dispatched to 88-year-old Mr Mutton. The crew was then diverted four minutes into the job. After another 71 minutes, the nearest available ambulance arrived from Kuranda.

"We're appalled . to have to wait more than two hours for an ambulance can't be acceptable," an upset friend, who did not want to be named, said yesterday. "The sort of duress Bob would have been under waiting all that time doesn't bear thinking about. "This man served his country (and) spent three and half years in Changi prisoner of war camp. He paid his taxes right up to the end and he gets treated like this."

Queensland Ambulance Service assistant commissioner Peter Cahill yesterday confirmed the long wait, blaming it on the number of ambulances delivering patients to Cairns Base Hospital on Monday morning. "The remaining ambulances in the region were dealing with higher priority call-outs," Mr Cahill said. "An ambulance was unable to be dispatched until 11.38am. However, four minutes later this ambulance was diverted to a higher priority case."

Mr Mutton's doctor rang the Far Northern Ambulance's communications centre on a patient transport line at 10.44am, saying Mr Mutton was "frail, delirious, with laboured breathing". A worried friend rang the ambulance about 45 minutes later, saying Mr Mutton still had "rather rattly breathing" and asking when help would come. Mr Cahill said the Kuranda ambulance had to be stood down from another job to finally get to Mr Mutton.

Disgusted friends said their mate had been "pretty crook". "We'll never know whether a quicker ambulance would have saved him," one friend said. "But we know he wasn't treated right. And we'd hate for someone else and someone else's friends and family to go through that." Cairns RSL sub-branch president Peter Turner described the long wait as unacceptable. "It upsets me that this would happen to anyone, veteran or no veteran," Mr Turner said. "Delays like that are a huge concern."

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