General News
12 July, 2023
Postcodes should not decide status
OPINION By ANNE WEBSTER I WAS thrilled to be in Newbridge for the flood recovery recommencement of the Newbridge Recreation Reserve. Having last visited during the floods in October it was great to see the reserve and clubhouse back operating and...
OPINION
By ANNE WEBSTER
I WAS thrilled to be in Newbridge for the flood recovery recommencement of the Newbridge Recreation Reserve.
Having last visited during the floods in October it was great to see the reserve and clubhouse back operating and looking fabulous!
Local sporting hubs such as the Newbridge Recreation Reserve provide such a wonderful facility for the community.
Football, netball and other sporting clubs strengthen the social fabric of small towns, as well as providing the means to stay healthy and fit, and of course have fun.
Being healthy in regional areas isn’t always easy, due to country people getting a raw deal on their health services.
A person’s postcode should not determine health status.
I said this in my maiden speech to Parliament in 2019, and I have been fighting for that cause ever since.
What is good for a resident of Melbourne or Sydney is not going to always cut it for someone in Bridgewater, or Boort, or Inglewood.
A regional healthcare policy is something, as Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health, I have been developing out of this year’s Regional Health Workforce Summit which I hosted in March.
Building on that format, I am hosting a Regional Aged Care Summit on July 6 in Mildura to bring peak bodies to the regions to hear the concerns of and work directly with frontline workers on solutions to the crisis we are facing in the sector.
The reality in regional Australia is that morbidity and mortality rates remain unacceptably high in regional postcodes.
Startling new evidence shows that each person in regional Australia is missing out on nearly $850 a year of healthcare access compared to their metropolitan cousins, which equates to a total annual rural health spending deficit of $6.5 billion.
This data was revealed by an independent Nous Group report commissioned by the National Rural Health Alliance.
The independent report investigates health spending from the perspective of a patient and reflects the inequitable access rural and regional patients experience.
Regional people are disadvantaged in three ways: poorer social determinants of health, a lack of service availability, and higher costs of access and delivery, all resulting in poor health outcomes.
The Nous report illustrates the need for a genuine regional lens to be applied to healthcare policy.
To effectively address inequity in rural healthcare and health outcomes, specific barriers to effective delivery and acknowledgement of shortcomings in current approaches must be addressed.
We have seen the Albanese Labor Government manipulate the Distribution Priority Areas so international graduate doctors can prioritise peri-urban settings rather than the regions. The evidence is that doctors have been leaving the regions since the announcement.
In addition, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia has noted that since that decision was made regional practices have seen a substantial drop in job applications – meaning while doctors have left there is not a steady stream of replacements.
Reversing this expansion is one lever the Government could quickly reverse to create better health outcomes for regional towns.
In addition, current funding models and service delivery arrangements create significant barriers to workforce recruitment and retention, further exacerbating the funding shortfall.
However, funding for programs such as Medicare and the National Disability Insurance Scheme is well and good - but it is useless without practitioners or service providers available to see in regional areas.
To truly make a difference for regional Australia’s health, we need to take a comprehensive approach that considers the challenges faced by these communities.
The NRHA is calling for a commitment to developing a National Rural Health Strategy among its recommendations from the report.
This strategy would include overarching guiding principles to improve the health and wellbeing of rural, regional and remote people and communities in a coordinated fashion.
This has to happen – regional people need dedicated health policy to bridge the appalling gap in health outcomes between them and metropolitan Australians.
* Dr Anne Webster is the member for Mallee
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