Rural doctors urge Telstra “don’t hang up on us!”

Rural Australians’ lives are being put at risk because on-call rural doctors cannot be assured they will receive priority repairs support from Telstra for faults with their home or surgery telephone lines, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) has warned.
RDAA is urging Telstra to rectify the situation urgently.

“Rural communities rely heavily on local doctors who are on-call after-hours to provide emergency and obstetric services in their local hospital, but Telstra is not coming to the party when those doctors’ phone lines are put out of action because of a service fault, storms and other occurrences,” RDAA president, Dr Peter Rischbieth, said.

“Despite repeated calls to Telstra over the past week, RDAA still cannot be assured that rural doctors will receive priority repairs support when their telephone line breaks down.

“Having access to a reliable landline telephone service is essential for doctors who provide on-call and emergency services in rural communities and Telstra’s failure to provide priority repairs for these doctors is clearly putting patients at risk.

“Local communities rely on Telstra to ensure that on-call rural doctors can be contacted at all times of the day and night to provide urgent care.

“We urge Telstra to ensure that all rural doctors who provide on-call and emergency services in rural communities are able to automatically access Telstra’s priority repair service when their phone line breaks down, to ensure they can always be reached at times of urgent medical need.”