The Member for Flinders, Peter Treloar, says the towns of Cleve, Elliston and Kimba are again facing a doctor shortage and are concerned about the effectiveness of the region’s medical service model.
The Mid-Eyre Medical Model was developed in 2013, with three GPs based in Cleve providing an on-call service for the three towns – often consulting by video-conference or phone.
However, Mr Treloar said two doctors recently left, citing a lack of flexibility in the model.
The Rural Doctors Workforce Agency is looking to fill the vacancies and recruit a fourth doctor.
Mr Treloar said decision-making needed to be returned to the regions.
“Rural communities, small communities know best themselves what they need and what they’re looking for and if they were able to negotiate or have more input into the negotiations we’d be much better off and much better able to achieve the result we want,” he said.
Mr Treloar said doctors needed to have a say in how the model operated.
“It’s getting more and more difficult to attract doctors to country hospitals, I understand that,” he said.
“It’s getting more and more difficult to attract allied health professionals to country areas but I think Country Health SA need to take that on board, understand it and actually have that flexibility in their modelling and their packages.”