Australia's peak doctors' group has launched a full-scale attack on the Commonwealth's effort to grow the nation's rural medical workforce.
The Australian Medical Association wants a complete overhaul of state and federal programs aimed at recruiting medical students to work in rural areas, with the association branding one key scheme ''draconian and unfunded''.
In its submission to a Senate inquiry into the supply of medical services in rural areas, the AMA said existing programs short-changed young doctors, relied too heavily on overseas trained health workers, and were simply not working.
According to a report by the association's president Steve Hambleton, the small NSW town of Cowra, 190km from Canberra, and Tasmania's Sandy Bay, only 4km from Hobart, both have the same ''remoteness classification'' for young doctors.
Dr Hambleton said he was concerned that 50 per cent of the rural medical force was being recruited from overseas, the medical profession was facing an ageing workforce and that there was a lack of incentive for young medical students.
''What we ask of our international colleagues is mind-boggling, because rural practice is challenging for any graduate, let alone someone unfamiliar to the country way of life,'' he said.
The AMA points to figures showing the average age of rural doctors in Australia is 55 years, and Dr Hambleton said his organisation was nervous about the reliance on foreign graduates, describing it as an ''unhealthy solution''.
''All that's been applied is a band-aid solution, and it's allowing a bad system to continue,'' he said.
''Although it's tempting to look for a simple fix, it's not solving the problem of Australian medical students not wanting to work in rural areas.''
The Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship Scheme, initiated by the Howard government in 2001, provided students with $25,000 a year, but Dr Hambleton said it was not enough.
''When applying for assistance students have to commit to working in a rural or remote area upon graduation, and this adds up to around a year for each year of study, so it works out to be a long time,'' he said.
''The studies show rural kids are more likely to return to these areas, but they don't receive any extra remuneration for their efforts after they have graduated.''
Dr Hambleton said doctors from major cities could be provided with a unique opportunity to experience a placement in a rural area through filling locum positions.
But a restriction in the General Practice Rural Incentives Program initiated in 2010 states that to be eligible for a relocation grant a practitioner must relocate to a location more remote than any they have worked in the previous 12 months.
''It's idiotic,'' Dr Hambleton said.
''If I was a student I might take myself to do some locums and find out I love living in the country but need to be closer to town, but now I can't get a relocation incentive,'' Dr Hambleton said.
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