Disaster & Emergency Medicine Project

General Practitioner services

The Role of the General Practitioner in a Disaster - a New Approach.

Australia is a sparsely populated nation, with great distances between its major centres. Disasters are often not confined to the more populated areas.(e.g., Port Arthur, Kempsey, Ash Wednesday, The Blackhawk Helicopter Crash). In Victoria alone, there are 50 Medical Displan call-outs per year.

As General Practitioners are relatively ubiquitous, they are well placed to arrive at the scene in numbers before the "Golden Hour" is far past. They are usually seen, however, as respondents to a Medical Disaster and rarely as participants in Disaster Management (Displan).

This Project seeks to increase the General Practitioners’ preparedness to respond to a disaster, and to introduce them into the Displan Organisation as the Field Medical Team. International literature searches have failed to uncover any other area where this occurs in an organised fashion.

The Project has been well accepted by State Displan (Victoria) who in turn has had a favourable response when presenting it to its national body, (The Australian Medical Disaster Coordinating Group).

Indeed, Mr Don Withers, Chairman of this Group, at a recent Medical Displan Seminar/Exercise in Portland, said Australia required 10-12 such teams to be mobilised in the event of a major Medical Emergency. He could currently rely on 6 teams to be available in 24 hours. If, in the extreme, this project were to be fully implemented, it could provide 400 teams spread throughout Australia!

Being a local resource, they would be readily available, would not need to travel great distances, would have knowledge of local resources and personnel, and would form the foundation for the recovery of the Community.

It may be that Australia’s needs and resources are unique, but this model should easily be adopted by other Nations.

Upskilling in Disaster Medicine will be required in order for General Practitioners to take up this new role. A proposal for one way of achieving this has been developed, in conjunction with The Centre for Rural Health in Moe, Victoria, RACGP, ACRRM, The Education SERU of the General Practice Branch, the Ambulance Services, and several other agencies.

The future of the Project is somewhat dependent on this upskilling program, and we look forward to its development.

Key Benefits

Upskilling General Practitioners

Improving GPs' awareness of Disaster Management procedures

Improving GPs' confidence in dealing with Disasters

Improving GPs' standing in the community

Send mail to john_drinkwater@onaustralia.com.au with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 1997 Disaster & Emergency Medicine Project
Last modified: February 14, 1998