In recent months, the ANU Medical Centre has seen a significant decrease in GP-related services, leaving thousands of students, many of whom are away from family support, facing financial insecurity, or managing ongoing health conditions, without consistent accessible healthcare. Instead, students are being redirected to temporary locums or encouraged to seek care off-campus, often at an unaffordable cost with extensive wait times.
This situation is not just concerning, it is dangerous and discriminatory particularly to students from marginalised backgrounds such as international, disabled, queer, BIPOC, women, and Indigenous students. Currently there are only 2 part-time GPs in the medical centre who are unable to provide free and accessible healthcare.
Join us in calling on the Australian National University to:
1. Publicly acknowledge the scale of the crisis and communicate a clear timeline for restoring full GP services on campus.
2. Commit funding and support to attract and retain permanent GPs, including competitive remuneration and support for practitioners specialising in student health.
3. Engage with students transparently throughout this process, including consulting our campaign, Bring Back Our Doctors, and the wider student body on needs and solutions.
4. Strengthen integration of mental and physical health services, ensuring wraparound care and continuity for those most at risk.
5. Provide direction to Allianz in expanding the number of GPs covered by the OSHC rebate in Canberra beyond the ANU Medical Centre.
6. Increasing the scope of practice of all practitioners at the Centre, to ensure best practice and to reflect national health priorities.
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