AMA President Dr Danielle McMullen provides an update on the past week at the national AMA.
Hello all and happy Friday.
Before I begin my update, I want to wish everybody well following the disastrous weather in Queensland and northern NSW. I am thinking of everyone affected by this, especially those facing a long period of recovery ahead. My thanks to those of you who have been keeping your patients and communities well during these challenging times.
While I am very much a Queenslander these days, I was fortunately only very minorly impacted - my house and practice are fine, but the cyclone delayed my return home, meaning I had a longer stay than planned in WA. Definitely a silver lining as it's a beautiful city and it was nice to have an opportunity to see more of my WA colleagues - thanks for putting up with me for a few days longer than anticipated!
A real feature of discussions in WA, and with colleagues across the country has been the pressures on our private hospitals and private healthcare more broadly. We've seen closures of maternity units for years, with huge impacts on obstetricians and their patients. We're seeing increasingly difficulty for some craft groups to gain admitting rights or operating lists in some facilities. And our public hospitals are clearly under so much pressure already, they really can't absorb any extra load. Our VP A/Prof Julian Rait is our representative on the Private Health CEO forum, and we are working closely together, and with stakeholders across the private sector to develop urgent solutions. The balance of private and public healthcare in Australia is critical to the success of our healthcare system.
I mentioned in my update last week that 8 March was International Women's Day and, unfortunately, that we are still facing threats to women's healthcare not only overseas but here in Australia too. I had the absolute pleasure of being invited to speak at St Hilda's College at the University of Melbourne for their annual International Women's Day lunch . It was a real treat to speak to these university students and college alumni. The audience were very engaged in hearing about women's health, and keen to all do their part to improve our health system for everyone.
I'm in Canberra today for the AMA's first Federal Council meeting of 2025. It dawns on me some of our members may be unfamiliar with what Federal Council (or our committees) do, so allow me to shed some light on this!
The AMA Federal Council meets four times a year and is our main policy-making body. It is a forum to identify and debate emerging issues of relevance to the membership. It is made up of the President and Vice-President, representatives from each state and territory, representatives of each of our practice groups - General Practice, Rural Doctors, Doctors in Training, Public Hospital Doctors, Private Specialists, and representatives from the craft groups of Anaesthetists, Dermatologists, Emergency Physicians, Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Ophthalmologists, Orthopaedic Surgeons, Paediatricians, Pathologists, Physicians, Psychiatrists, Radiologists, Surgeons - as well as our Ordinary and Independent members, and representatives from the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association and the Australian Medical Students Association.
You can see your Federal Council is a broad group of qualified experts from across the country, all of whom help to shape the AMA's policy positions with the support of the relevant AMA Councils and Committees . We also often seek general member feedback to inform our position statements. These Position Statements shape our advocacy to governments and stakeholders, and inform our spokespeople - like me - when we speak with the media. If you'd like to contact your representative on Federal Council, this can be done through emailing [email protected]
I look forward to updating you next week with some highlights from our Federal Council meeting.
Until then stay safe and well.
