The AFMW advocacy effort doesn’t stop and this is the recent AFMW Submission for the Inquiry into the provision of general practitioner and related primary health services to outer metropolitan, rural, and regional Australians which has been accepted and is publicly available under the allocated submission number 96, from the committee’s website:
www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/PrimaryHealthServices/Submissions
The committee is required to report by last sitting day in March 2022. A copy of the report will be loaded onto the committee’s website and may be accessed at www.aph.gov.au/senate_ca
Further Information
Further information on the inquiry process is available on the Senate website at:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Getting_Involved_in_Parliamentary_Committees.
Download AFMW’s Submission 96 (pdf)
I’d like to acknowledge the AFMW GP team who helped with this submission, especially given the pressures we face with the rollout of the COVID vaccination programs in each state.
Magdalena Simonis
President, AFMW
Associate Professor Magdalena Simonis AM is the Immediate Past President of the AFMW (2020-2023), former President of VMWS (2013 & 2017-2020) and current AFMW National Coordinator (2024-2026). She is a full time clinician who also holds positions on several not for profit organisations, driven by her passion for bridging gaps across the health sector. She is a leading women’s health expert, keynote speaker, climate change and gender equity advocate and government advisor.
Magdalena was awarded a lifetime membership of the RACGP for her contributions which include past chair of Women in General Practice, longstanding contribution to the RACGP Expert Committee Quality Care, the RACGP eHealth Expert Committee. She is regularly invited to comment on primary care research though mainstream and medical media and contributes articles on various health issues through newsGP and other publications.
Magdalena has represented the RACGP at senate enquiries and has worked on several National Health Framework reviews. She is author of the RACGP Guide on Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery and co-reviewer of the RACGP Red Book Women’s Health Chapter, and reviewer of the RACGP White book
Both an RACGP examiner and University examiner, she undertakes general practice research and is a GP Educator with the Safer Families Centre of Research Excellence, which develops education tools to assist the primary care sector identify, respond to and manage family violence . Roles outside of RACGP include the Strategy and Policy Committee for Breast Cancer Network Australia, Board Director of the Melbourne University Teaching Health Clinics and the elected GP representative to the AMA Federal Council. In 2022. she was award the AMA (Vic) Patrick Pritzwald-Steggman Award 2022, which celebrates a doctor who has made an exceptional contribution to the wellbeing of their colleagues and the community and was listed as Women’s Agenda 2022 finalist for Emerging Leader in Health.
Magdalena has presented at the United Nations as part of the Australian Assembly and was appointed the Australian representative to the World Health Organisation, World Assembly on COVID 19, by the Medical Women’s International Association (MWIA) in 2021. In 2023, A/Professor Simonis was included on the King’s COVID-19 Champion’s list and was also awarded a Member (AM) in the General Division for significant service to medicine through a range of roles and to women’s health.
