Medicare Locals

Last week I attended the farewell function of our Monash Division of General Practice, after which I wrote a piece for Australian Doctor magazine about the demise of the divisions of general practice. The piece was published on June 25th in the online edition of Australian Doctor.

In this article, I said:

If one might borrow an analogy from conservation biology, Medicare Locals have not evolved naturally from the divisions but instead have been foisted on us – rather like an invasive species. Will they result in the fragmentation of patient care, beset as it will now be by the competing interests of the various primary care craft groups?
Will patients (who will now, I suppose, become clients in the majority parlance) suffer?
I recall Willy Loman’s famous lines from the play Death of a Salesman: “Will you take that phoney dream and burn it before something happens?”
Let us hope that these Medicare Locals don’t prove to be just a phoney dream of those who know not – and know not that they know not.

To read more, go to http://www.australiandoctor.com.au/opinions/guest-view/death-of-a-division