By Violet Li
Pearcedale Medical Centre has reopened on Friday and Saturday mornings since 19 January after the community’s joint effort to raise awareness of the GP shortage crisis in town.
Two new GPs have joined the centre with Dr Pillay practising on Friday and Saturday mornings and Dr Gauchan expecting patients on Saturday mornings.
In 2023, Star News reported that the medical centre had to cut operating hours due to long-time difficulties in hiring new GPs.
Owner Dr Farza Rastegar said policy restrictions and zoning rules shut qualified overseas doctors out of the door.
Zoned as a ‘metropolitan’ clinic in the Casey-south catchment, the centre is only allowed to hire overseas-trained GPs or accredited foreign graduates who have been working in a Distribution Priority Area (DPA) for at least 10 years before providing services covered by Medicare rebates. DPAs are locations with a shortage of GPs, mainly in regional, rural, and remote areas.
Neighbouring areas, including Frankston and Mornington, have been granted DPA, despite having multiple medical clinics.
Somerville, located within the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council, shares the same postcode as Pearcedale and has been classified as DPA.
Running the only GP service in town with four GPs caring for more than 3000 patients, Dr Rastegar felt the increasing pressure and requested an exemption change to the DPA classification of the catchment around June last year, which was not approved.
The government stated that the Casey-South catchment had higher than average levels of GP services.
The community was furious about the rejection after it led to the clinic cutting its hours.
They talked to different media outlets, including The Guardian and ABC, hoping for a change.
Dr Rastegar said one of the new GPs Dr Pillay saw the news on ABC and contacted her.
“He works in Warragul and lives in Clyde. He was really keen to help out,” she said.
“But I don’t think he will be able to work here permanently. It’s hard for him to work for six and seven days a week.
“I don’t want to raise my hopes high.”
Dr Rastegar did not hear anything affirmative from the government and she believed nothing would change in the next round of DPA review after a phone call with an official working for the Department of Health.
“It was a very condescending conversation. He constantly told me to stop and listen like I am a five-year-old,” she said.
“He was trying to explain to me why they can’t change DPA and exempt the area because it’s a competition between doctors.
“He was saying there was a competition within general practices, and the practices that have more doctors are going to be more successful and have more patients.”
Dr Rastegar said she was shocked to learn general practices were a hunger game in this official’s mind.
“My small business can’t afford $30,000 recruitment fees. I questioned him if he was telling me because our clinic is smaller, we are destined to fail,” she said.
“He said he did not mean that, but he thought our clinic got too many patients for the number of doctors. Why can’t the patients go somewhere else?
“I said because my patients are local and some of them are elderly. They can’t drive. And he was like, so you want the government to change the guidelines for 10 elderly patients?”
The conversation did not go anywhere, Dr Rastegar said.
“It was a really heated and upsetting conversation. My heart was pounding for four hours after the call,” she said.
“I am going to fight this because I don’t think this is right. The location on the map should not override the health and well-being of 3000 patients.
“But I don’t think they would change [DPA] at all. If I shut down tomorrow, I don’t think they care.”
In a statement to Star News, federal Health Minister Mark Butler said they knew Melbourne’s outer south-east was continuing to grow and it was becoming more difficult to get into a GP.
“There is no higher priority in health for the Albanese Government than rebuilding general practice,” he said.
“That’s why we are undertaking a wide-ranging review to urgently investigate how to more equitably distribute doctors and other health workers around the country, through the Working Better for Medicare Review.
“The government funds a range of programs and incentives to encourage GPs to relocate in addition to DPA.”
The Working Better for Medicare Review is expected to be completed in 2024.
