With an election looming, peak medical bodies are calling on politicians to back “affordable” financial re- forms to boost health services in the bush.

A joint strategy from the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) wants to increase the number of rural recruits and retention rates to address the “maldistribution of doctors – in terms of geography and skills”.

The strategy calls for a two-tier “Rural Rescue Package” which offers financial incentives taking into account degrees of remoteness in location and boosting the number of doctors with advanced training in a range of areas like obstetrics, surgery, anaesthetics and acute mental health.

Tamworth GP Jenny May says a multifaceted approach is needed to address recruitment and retention.

“The Commonwealth does have a pivotal role in ensuring that rural practice is viable,” Dr May said

“Thus the focus on financial incentives is not unreasonable, but will not deliver unless combined with other approaches.”

The package from the AMA and the RDAA also outlines non-financial incentives to boost the attractiveness of the nation’s regions.

The non-financial incentives include providing relief to doctors so they could leave their communities for holidays or professional development, as well as increasing staffing numbers in work places.

“As practices are often private or state-owned, the Commonwealth cannot man- date staffing levels,” she said.

“It seems like it recognises the added and varied work that rural doctors do, but doesn’t address how to get those non-financial incentives like flexibility and increased staff in place.”

Dr May recently completed a PhD looking at rural doctor recruitment and retention and agreed that building a “critical mass” was crucial to retaining medicos in the bush.

“They need the skills to work where they work, but they also increasingly don’t want to work alone, because if you’re alone, you’re on-call for long periods of time and it’s not attractive,” she said.

“We need to be building a critical mass of rural health professionals in our regional centres so that it’s shared.”

The Tamworth GP found that money was not a huge driver for recruitment and retention in her PhD research.

“As long as money was comparable, money wasn’t the driver,” Dr May said.

“People are not going to stay in rural areas if they are earning significantly less than metropolitan counterparts.

Dr May said the organisations pushing the funding boost would appreciate the multifaceted approach neede to address rural doctor shortages, but said “equitable access” remains an issue for the 30 per cent of Australians