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Katie Woolf spoke with AMA Australian Medical Association NT President Dr Robert Parker · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Three sixty with Katie Wolf. Join the conversation with Katie Wolf.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: You are our eyes and ears in the Territory Mixed
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  Speaker 1: one oh four point nine.
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  Speaker 2: Now joining us on the line the Australian Medical Association's
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  Speaker 2: Northern Territory President, Doctor Robert Parker.
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  Speaker 1: Good morning, Doctor Parker.
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  Speaker 3: Morning Katy.
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  Speaker 1: Now we haven't caught up for.
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  Speaker 2: A few weeks, so I might firstly ask you from
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  Speaker 2: your perspective, how are things going with the vaccine roll out?
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  Speaker 3: Well, again, we're just guided by the national as you're
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  Speaker 3: not again the whole issue with a Z the need
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  Speaker 3: to make it for people for over fifty Now, I
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  Speaker 3: presume that's having an influence on what's having in the
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  Speaker 3: territory because of the temperature issues associated with pizer and
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  Speaker 3: the need therefore have cold shane to the remote rural communities.
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  Speaker 3: But I presume that the Health Department's working hard on
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  Speaker 3: getting that organized so that all our vulnerable territorians are
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  Speaker 3: properly you miniz.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we will make sure.
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  Speaker 2: A bit after ten o'clock this morning, we're going to
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  Speaker 2: catch up with the Northern Territory Health Deputy Chief Executive,
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  Speaker 2: the person in charge of that rollout, Michelle McKay and
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  Speaker 2: we'll get a bit further detail, Dr Parker, from your perspective,
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  Speaker 2: do you know anecdotally if there's been many cancelations or
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  Speaker 2: anything like that as a result of the changes to
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  Speaker 2: advice with the vaccine.
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  Speaker 3: Well, again, I've just kind up with my local GP
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  Speaker 3: the other day. He did they having some problems with
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  Speaker 3: not in a vaccine, turning out no vaccine, no patients whatever.
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  Speaker 3: So that's the links for the general practice and it
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  Speaker 3: is very difficult, you know, for general practice time is money,
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  Speaker 3: so they if they've got appointments booked and they have
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  Speaker 3: suddenly had to cancel them, that's no income for the GPS.
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  Speaker 3: So that that coordination of the vaccine with the GP
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  Speaker 3: support is very important.
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  Speaker 2: Now, Dr Parker, I do want to just head out
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  Speaker 2: and talk a little bit about the facility out at
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  Speaker 2: Howard Springs, the Center for National Resilience. This morning, we
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  Speaker 2: have just been notified that there's three new COVID nineteen
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  Speaker 2: cases have been recorded in the Northern Territory for the
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  Speaker 2: past twenty four hours.
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  Speaker 1: It seems as though we are having a bit of
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  Speaker 1: a spur.
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  Speaker 2: I guess you'd say there at the moment twenty one
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  Speaker 2: active cases. As I understand it, the OZMAT team, the
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  Speaker 2: National Critical Care and Trauma Response Center team doing a
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  Speaker 2: great job at managing things. But from May we were
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  Speaker 2: due or certainly the timeline was given that that was
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  Speaker 2: going to be when this handover would happen out at
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  Speaker 2: Howard Springs. From the sound of things, though, after catching
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  Speaker 2: up with the Health Minister Natasha Philes a little earlier
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  Speaker 2: in the week, it sounds like the staffing issue out there,
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  Speaker 2: or recruiting staff for out there, is going to be
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  Speaker 2: a bit of a battle. Take a listen to what
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  Speaker 2: she told us yesterday, O Katie.
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  Speaker 4: I want to make it really clear that change will
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  Speaker 4: only occur when OZMATT has the confidence that we have
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  Speaker 4: all the clinical procedures in place to keep territory and safe.
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  Speaker 2: There were plans to obviously recruit four hundred staff that
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  Speaker 2: we're going to need to be attracted to fill those
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  Speaker 2: roles once the change over happened. Where are you adding
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  Speaker 2: terms of this recruitment. How many staff have now been recruited.
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  Speaker 4: I don't have the latest figure, but when I was
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  Speaker 4: at the facility a couple of weeks ago, around seventy
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  Speaker 4: staff have already been recruited. Now some stuff are going
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  Speaker 4: to come across from OSMA to MTG, but that recruitment
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  Speaker 4: is going well for the facility, and like I said,
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  Speaker 4: we won't to be changing from the OSMAT model to
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  Speaker 4: NTG until we have absolute confidence that we have those
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  Speaker 4: clinical processes and the plans in place, as well as
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  Speaker 4: the staff to make sure that that can be executed.
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  Speaker 2: Doctor Parker, do you think we're going to be able
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  Speaker 2: to recruit those positions?
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  Speaker 3: Again, I've got concerns, I suppose. Yeah, they're about the
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  Speaker 3: ability to recruit the number of people required to run
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  Speaker 3: the level of overseas repatriations that national cabinets are expecting.
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  Speaker 3: And I suppose if we can't recruit, we can't get
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  Speaker 3: those numbers back. And again the I understand a lot
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  Speaker 3: of those individuals are from subcontinent where there's very large
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  Speaker 3: rates of COVID at the moment in the subcontinent. So
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  Speaker 3: I think you've got another further concern, But I presume,
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  Speaker 3: again this will be guided by national cabinet. If we
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  Speaker 3: haven't got the staff, then we'll have to cut back
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  Speaker 3: on the expected numbers coming in.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I had asked the minister yesterday whether we
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  Speaker 2: you know whether we are still going to see that
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  Speaker 2: expanded number of flights, and she said that they were
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  Speaker 2: going to happen over coming weeks. I mean, what do
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  Speaker 2: you reckon needs to happen out there, doctor Parker.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I just think National Care again, it's it's National
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  Speaker 3: Cabinet rather than the territory, and I think National Cabinet
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  Speaker 3: ought to put a brake on it. In a terrify
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  Speaker 3: you ought to be reporting back to the national Cabinet saying,
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  Speaker 3: you know, we've got this number of staff. The national
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  Speaker 3: cabinets say, we'll hang on here. We'll have to restrict
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  Speaker 3: it until your fully staffed and your your staff will
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  Speaker 3: been trained appropriately by the OSMAT so that you've got
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  Speaker 3: effective handover. We just don't have the people coming.
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  Speaker 1: In now, doctor Parker.
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  Speaker 2: I know that you know that that recruiting to that
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  Speaker 2: center isn't our only concern. ABC News is reporting that
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  Speaker 2: down in Catherine that emergency room doctors nurses in the
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  Speaker 2: Northern Territory town of Catherine could be overseen by a
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  Speaker 2: virtual specialist thousands of kilometers away.
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  Speaker 1: The report says that.
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  Speaker 2: That is as a result of a chronic shortfall in
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  Speaker 2: physicians continues to.
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  Speaker 1: Plague rural Australia.
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  Speaker 2: Is it normal to be in a situation where we
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  Speaker 2: may indeed have somebody overseeing or a virtual specialist managing
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  Speaker 2: Catherine's emergency room.
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  Speaker 3: Well, again, I'm not sure. The College of Emergency Medicine
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  Speaker 3: is probably the expert about whether this is possible, whether
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  Speaker 3: it happens in other parts of Australia. I mean video
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  Speaker 3: in terms of supervision, video has its use, and particularly
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  Speaker 3: in my especially psychiatry. Yes, you can talk to people
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  Speaker 3: and do a middle state through video. However, you know
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  Speaker 3: the problem is, when I was at medical school, it
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  Speaker 3: was taught pretty wisely that with a diagnosis, seventy percent
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  Speaker 3: is history, twenty five percent is physical examination, of five
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  Speaker 3: percent is other which can be x rays, tests and whatever.
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  Speaker 3: Now the problem is that you know, often to do
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  Speaker 3: a comprehensive review of a patient, you actually need to
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  Speaker 3: put hands on, stick a stethoscope on the chairs, to whatever,
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  Speaker 3: you know, do whatever examinations required, and obviously you can't
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  Speaker 3: do that by video. And I suppose that's my main
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  Speaker 3: concern about so called video supervision. And I mean quite
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  Speaker 3: often it's an experienced or whatever, so you might you know,
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  Speaker 3: James like Hard Murmurs often whom experienced condition will pick
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  Speaker 3: up what's a benign heart murmur as opposed to a
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  Speaker 3: pathological heart murmur, and so using a junior doctor to
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  Speaker 3: do that probably is enough for the standard we require.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Parker.
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  Speaker 2: It does seem as though, I mean, we've spoken about
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  Speaker 2: Catherine having some issues in terms of recruitment, even when
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  Speaker 2: you talk about GPS in the past. But I'm sure
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  Speaker 2: that they're not alone. Do we have a bit of
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  Speaker 2: a shortage Australia white at the moment with our medical
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  Speaker 2: professionals due to COVID.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean COVID has impacted on that, but there's
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  Speaker 3: always been an issue attracting people to the bush and
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  Speaker 3: there's a whole range of historical factors that have impacted
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  Speaker 3: on that. But unfortunately the bush people on the bush
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  Speaker 3: and attraction factors seem to impact. I mean, one of
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  Speaker 3: the you know, there's the issue that the medical equipment
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  Speaker 3: of the bush tends to attract are the very young
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  Speaker 3: or they're very old, so that people you know, who
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  Speaker 3: didn't have a whole bunch of it was always the
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  Speaker 3: mortgage to partner the kids who didn't have the mortgage,
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  Speaker 3: the partner and the kids would go out wish to
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  Speaker 3: sort of explore things and to develop a career. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 3: now with the changing nature of workforce, with a lot
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  Speaker 3: more women in the workforce in medical workforce which is
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  Speaker 3: excellent obviously, and an old, often more mature workforce, people
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  Speaker 3: have often got mortgages, kids, career paths that don't necessarily
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  Speaker 3: fit with that sort of early adventure moving out to
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  Speaker 3: the bush to seek your early career. So unfortunately that's
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  Speaker 3: probably having an impact on it. And also these issues
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  Speaker 3: such as GP registrars, you know, career paths for GPE
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  Speaker 3: registrars and whatever, which is also having an impact. So
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  Speaker 3: there's a range of factors that are actually affecting real
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  Speaker 3: workforce at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: And doctor Parker, then when you sort of head into
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  Speaker 2: the town centers, into locations like Darwin and look at
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  Speaker 2: hospitals like Royal Darwin Hospital, how are things going for
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  Speaker 2: us in terms of the numbers and staff at those facilities.
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  Speaker 3: Well, again I think I'm not. Again, there are some vacancies,
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  Speaker 3: but I mean the health partner's always the territories always
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  Speaker 3: had a very transient, much more of a transient workforce
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  Speaker 3: than other states of territories. I think just because of
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  Speaker 3: the nature of young people moving in and out, so
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  Speaker 3: we've always had a fairly fluid health recruitment issue. And
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  Speaker 3: I think it's not too bad at the name to
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  Speaker 3: be frank. I mean it's probably pretty much up to
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  Speaker 3: the stage normally, is yep.
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  Speaker 2: And have we had any other situations out at Royal
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  Speaker 2: Darwin Hospital in recent times so we've sort of had
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  Speaker 2: bed shortages or anything. I know you and I have
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  Speaker 2: spoken about code yellows in the past, but are things
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  Speaker 2: going fairly smoothly at this stage?
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  Speaker 1: Well?
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  Speaker 3: The I mean the hospital is always under pressure and
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  Speaker 3: my minister, my leader, the Minister Hunt a couple of
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  Speaker 3: years ago pointed out the Territory Hospital that El springs
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  Speaker 3: En Darwin are probably twice the three times as busy
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  Speaker 3: as other hospitals in Australia, so there's tremendous pressure constantly
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  Speaker 3: on the hospital and hospital you management are always working
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  Speaker 3: to try and get the patient float throughput as efficient
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  Speaker 3: as possible.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Doctor Robert Parker, anything else we should be aware
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  Speaker 2: of this morning from your perspective, A look.
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  Speaker 3: That I can think of, Katie No at the moment.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Good on your doctor Parker. Always appreciate your time I
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: know you're a busy man.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, good to talk.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you. That is doctor Robert Parker.
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  Speaker 2: There, the president of the Northern Territory branch of the
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  Speaker 2: Australian Medical Association.