General Practitioner for Mount Garnet

Eligibility - Electors in the Division of Hill
Principal Petitioner:
Dumitru Kuenstler
9 Lucey Street
MOUNT GARNET QLD 4872
Total Signatures - 18
Sponsoring Member: Mr Shane Knuth MP
Posting Date: 18/9/2019
Tabled Date: 18/9/2019
Responded By: Hon Dr Steven Miles MP on 18/10/2019
TO: The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland

Electors of the Division of Hill draws to the attention of the House that Mount Garnet, a community of 440 residents requires regular and frequent quality medical service by a General Practitioner at least 2-3 full days per week. Currently such a service is not provided. The situation is as follows: A private medical practice from Ravenshoe was contracted by Queensland Health to provide this service once a week, but is not delivering. People in Mount Garnet get visited by a private GP once fortnightly for 4 hours. This is not sufficient. Because this accumulates to only 8 hours per month, the clinics are booked out for months in advance. The practitioners arrive under-equipped (without core devices such as blood pressure monitors and stethoscopes). Often, all they do is book the patients into their clinic in Ravenshoe, which does not bulk bill, is expensive and 50 km away. This makes it basically inaccessible for patients who are on a small pension or/and unable to drive. There is no standard of service.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House as a tax paying community we have the right to an accessible, regular and quality health service in Mount Garnet, which Queensland Health must provide to us immediately. This service should not left to be in the hands of one single, private practitioner, who is obviously not interested in providing genuine medical help to his patients, but rather get managed by Queensland Health directly.