The go-ahead has been given for Shellharbour's new SuperClinic and this will become reality in the months ahead. It is badly needed. Shellharbour has a General Practicioner to resident numbers ratio of 6596, way out of line with other Illawarra areas.
The tender has been awarded to the Illawarra Division of General Practice. As a result, it will be manned by the existing pool of GP's, but those manning the clinic will be restricted to six half day sessions a week to distribute the load and ensure practices in other suburbs are maintained.
And that is where a disturbing aspect seems to be emerging.
The most important content of general practice is the bond between doctor and patient. Most people have the same GP look after their health and as a consequence that medical practicioner knows them and their ailments intimately. They consult whenever a new symptom appears and they attend regularly to have scripts renewed - hence they are under regular review.
It sounds like the SuperClinic is going to be a " take a number and see whichever doctor is allocated to you "
There is a similarity between that and the public hospital system - and if that happens that bond between doctor and patient will be the first casualty.
There is every chance that a patient attending the SuperClinic may be seen by a doctor who impresses them sufficiently that they travel to where that doctor's practice is situated to maintain that bond.
The whole idea of the SuperClinic is to amass a pool of doctors to service a population group that is presently dangerously under serviced.
It will certainly achieve that objective - but at the cost of rupturing the intimate doctor/patient bond that is the main plank of general practice.
Unfortunately this seems to be the way the world is heading with rising population numbers - and a scarcity of services !
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