SHADOW Health and Aged Care Minister Anne Ruston said yesterday that governments of the day need to recognise pharmacists as the highly trained healthcare professionals that they are.
"As policymakers we must place greater emphasis on the value of primary care, because that's how we improve our healthcare system," Ruston told delegates at the opening plenary session at APP2024.
"The reality is governments have got to stop treating pharmacists as script fillers and actually start to recognise you as the highly trained health professionals that you are."
Ruston said she hoped there was a good outcome for the 8CPA as the health system was in "absolute crisis" with "lack of adequate and timely access to GPs" and the "collapse" of bulk-billing, despite the tripling of the Medicare rebate.
She mentioned that people are doing one of two things - avoiding seeing their doctor due to costs, or seeing more and more of their pharmacist for critical primary care.
Ruston mentioned that as she is from a rural area, "it's well known that the pharmacist is the first and often the only primary healthcare provider, especially if patients have to travel hundreds of kilometres to see a doctor".
"That's why in this climate of compounding challenges it is the thing that concerns me the most because that is going to be an extra burden on our healthcare system."
She explained that as people don't get the early diagnosis and treatments needed, down the track it means "they're going to rely more and more heavily on the more acute services in our system".
"It's not just a bad outcome for hospitals or the health system, it's a bad outcome for all Australians, as taxpayers are paying for it.
"And that's why I'm absolutely obsessed with this concept of value and access rather than a pursuit through a race to the bottom, on cost," said Ruston. JG
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