I’ve been going to the doctor a lot lately because my son has a small skin problem that becomes a big problem if he pokes it. Then it rapidly spreads across his face and we have to make an emergency dash to the clinic.
As a dedicated parent, I am, of course, committed to helping my child rid himself of this affliction, especially if it improves his personal hygiene habits (please God), but we have been visiting the doctor for months now and the elusiveness of a medical solution is taking its toll.
I feel our problem lies in the fact that we can never see the same doctor twice, no matter what I do. I’ve sat poised with the speed dial, ready to be the first caller to the clinic at 8.30am. I’ve attempted to outwit the online booking system and I’ve possibly strayed into emotional blackmail territory with the receptionist but, honestly, all we want is a doctor that my son feels comfortable with and it seems crazy that we can’t achieve that.
Australians visit general practitioners more than any other kind of health professional and 80 per cent of us value having access to our preferred GP. When I was young, my mother could pick up the phone to our family favourite, Dr Nancy, and have us in her office within the hour. Her consulting room was intimidating for a small child, filled with sharp implements and giant medical books, but the trust and rapport we had with Nancy helped to make even the worst injection visit bearable.
When I became a mother, I craved that same reassurance and continuity of healthcare for my children, although we didn’t necessarily need another Dr Nancy. They just had to be available to us when we needed them. But over the years, I have been struck by how hard it has become to maintain a regular family doctor, to the point where it feels like that the expectation belongs in the dream world of a TV medical drama.
The benefits of having a good relationship with a doctor are clear. An OECD survey found Australians who had a regular GP rated their healthcare more positively and had more trust in their GP. And yet one in three of us are unable to see our preferred GP when we want to, leaving us, potentially, to deal with a stranger each time.
I get that a trip to the doctor has always required some patience, and an inevitable wait next to someone with “highly infectious” written all over them. But at the end of that, it’s exhausting to have to start from scratch with each new doctor, explaining your situation again and again. Then there are the follow-up questions about the previous doctor’s approach, like “Why did they prescribe that?” which I have no answer for except, “I don’t know, they just did,” and that’s a deflating exchange for everyone involved.
And I have had the fortune to have been living in the same area, near the same GP clinic, for years. Consider the valuable knowledge and consistent approach that is lost each time a renter is forced to uproot their lives and start the process of finding a new doctor. Our system does little to help them maintain those years of connection.
I recognise we are lucky in Australia to have a health care system that consistently delivers highly trained and skilled professionals, but that isn’t always enough. In my case, each new doctor has brought a different perspective to my son’s troubled dermis and their treatments can signal a radical departure from the last approach. So we now have a bathroom full of soggy cotton wool balls, tubes of goop and a mysterious bottle of blue dust that lands on everything except my boy – and his skin problem persists. The next visit we’ll probably get a different doctor and have to start all over again.
We know that it’s only getting harder to recruit GPs. We know that when people lose trust in their local GP, the shockwaves are felt through the healthcare system as visitors clog emergency departments or forego necessary treatment altogether.
A recent increase in government funding for bulk billing places will hopefully reduce some pressures on the system. But the tried and tested concept of the regular family doctor has proven so effective as a way to deliver reliable health care to all of us, it would be tragic if we let it become a quaint thing of the past. Maybe one day medical science might even help us solve the problem of my itchy son.
Rosie Beaumont is a Melbourne-based writer.
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