Winter is coming: there should be no excuses for the next covid/flu wave

Winter is coming: there should be no excuses for the next covid/flu wave

We know that with the right supports and structures, general practice can care for patients with chronic disease or other high-risk factors in the community – patients who would otherwise be directed to emergency departments.

It is in every Australian’s interest that we support GPs to care for patients as we “Live with COVID”. We need to move COVID-care out of hospitals and into general practice, and make sure GPs are able to do it.

While the burden of COVID has been great, it hides the harms caused by hospitals being unable to provide acute care, by mothers needing to have their babies without enough support, by elderly patients not being able get an ambulance to get them to hospital.  

For the last two years, COVID has been largely a hospital-based disease. In Queensland, it was only recently that they changed their policy of hospitalising every patient. Omicron changed that and as we prepare for the inevitable next wave, we need to be preparing for the care of patients to move from hospitals to general practice. New medications and anti-virals will provide general practice with the tools they need to care for patients and keep them out of hospitals. 

We know that with the right supports and structures, general practice can care for patients with chronic disease or other high-risk factors in the community – patients who would otherwise be directed to emergency departments. Those patients need management and support of their non-COVID illness as much as COVID, and their GP is the person to provide that care. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us once and for all that the most important thing in healthcare is not fancy machines, it’s people. General practice has always known this. For centuries, GPs have cared for their patients armed mainly with their skills and their deep knowledge and understanding of their patients.  

In his February Press Club speech, Prime Minister Scott Morrison noted that Omicron took his government and policy makers by surprise. We had all hoped Australia’s incredible success with vaccination would be more protective. 

However, there cannot be any excuses going forward. We know with absolute certainty what we need to happen to be ready for winter. 

The AMA is calling on both the Commonwealth and State to provide block funding via Primary Health Networks to build capacity in general practice to provide COVID care. This will ensure GPs are notified of COVID positive patients, that they are able to access relevant information from hospitals and refer patients back into hospitals if they need to. They will be able to build skilled teams to provide the monitoring of patients. The funding is needed because otherwise, under our outdated and underfunded Medicare system, GPs simply cannot afford to provide the care they need. For instance, Medicare does not fund the hours a GP may need to spend on the phone to a hospital care team, the nurse calling patients to check in on them, the software needed to remotely monitor patients or integrate with a hospital patient flow system.  

We know the answers and next time, there can and should be no excuses for not providing Australians with the care that they need.