The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has delivered a scathing assessment of the West Australian Government’s Patient Assisted Travel Scheme (PATS), calling for fundamental changes.
The scheme provides transport and accommodation subsidies for regional patients to attend specialist medical appointments more than 100 kilometres from their home.
But the AMA has told a parliamentary inquiry the subsidies were inadequate and the scheme lacked flexibility.
“It needs to be reformed and it needs to be tided up,” AMA state president Michael Gannon told the inquiry during a public hearing.
“We need to increase the amount of money that is paid to individual patients so it is a more realistic payment towards the ever-increasing price of accommodation and transport.”
He said the allowances needed to be “more in touch with reality”, given the high cost of accommodation near the Fiona Stanley and Sir Charles Gardiner hospitals.
The inquiry, chaired by Liz Behjat, is investigating how adequately PATS delivers assistance to regional people accessing specialist medical care.
Patient travel scheme overly bureaucratic: AMA
Dr Gannon said PATS had frequently failed regional patients and the reality of logistics was often ignored
He also said the scheme was overly bureaucratic.
“The processes don’t consider the medical detail or differential between types of care,” he said.
“It’s bananas to ask a patient to go from Narrogin to Bunbury because it’s five kilometres closer than a hospital in Perth.
“We want the journey to be as seamless as possible for patients.
“They might be feeling afraid, very sick and the last thing they want is to be fighting for basic rights with a clerk at the local country hospital.”
Dr Gannon said the scheme needed to be more compassionate.
“We should be as compassionate as possible with letting people travel with carers and family members if need be,” he said.
“The care should be as good or if not, nearly as good as their cousins in the city.”
Ms Behjat said the committee had received an extraordinary amount of information.
“But what has come through loud and clear, is that it is an incredibly valued system but there are little things that need to change and be updated,” she said.
“The report will be the guidebook on how to make the system better.”