THE State president of the Australian Medical Association says it will be a "tragic step" for Goulburn if it loses the services of its only paediatrician.
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Dr John Gullotta made the comment after a dinner meeting with some 12 local doctors at Trappers Function Centre on Tuesday, where he listened to their concerns.
Dr Kerrie MacDonald's resignation from Goulburn Base Hospital is effective from mid December unless the Greater Southern Area Health Service (GSAHS) convinces her that it is serious in its attempts to recruit a second paediatrician for the hospital.
She resigned over what she termed "dangerous workloads" early last month.
"If there is no paediatrician, there will be no obstetrician because no obstetrician would deliver a baby without having one present. We are looking at a major crisis," Dr Gullotta said.
He said if doctors were working in unsafe conditions, carrying heavy workloads, then they should simply stop.
Dr Gullotta described Tuesday's meeting as a very passionate one in which everyone had concern for the future of local health services from specialists' recruitment to nursing shortages, GSAHS budgetary woes, delayed payments of visiting medical officers and suppliers.
He foresaw a crisis in the next two years if serious steps were not taken to recruit more surgeons and was critical of Health Minister John Hatzistergos' decision to this week to send a team to England and Ireland to enlist more of the professionals.
"While Goulburn is crumbling, the Minister is lying back thinking of England when he should be thinking of Goulburn and how to address things here," Dr Gullotta said.
He described it as a band-aid solution for a system hemorrhaging year after year. The average age of visiting medical officers (VMOs) statewide was 46, but in Goulburn this was higher.
Instead of health services spending large amounts of money on locums, he believed a better solution was for the government to channel more energy into keeping existing specialists. It could also entice new specialists with tax breaks, a house package, better working conditions and other incentives.
"You will never attract a specialist to Goulburn if there is only one other specialist there because it means they will be on-call every two days. We say one in five or six days is more acceptable, so these are issues the Area has to address," Dr Gullotta said.
With broken fire alarms, unpaid creditors and lack of supplies "becoming the norm," the president said it was ludicrous for the State Government to spend more money on an auditor to GSAHS.
Dr Gullotta has visited five other centres in NSW, including Albury and Wagga. The AMA is gathering all of this information to assist its arguments in a yet to be organised meeting with Mr Hatzistergos.
Goulburn's elective surgery waiting list
1995 - 165 people
2005 - 401 people - one quarter of these are for orthopaedic surgery.
There is a five-month wait for orthopaedic surgery and for ophthalmology (2.8 months is the State average).
* Source: Australian Medical Association.
