I WAS so thrilled this week to visit the Swan Hill District Health new emergency department, which I fought hard for and secured $30 million through the former Coalition Government.
As Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health, it was rewarding to get an early sneak peek at the facilities while nursing and other staff were being inducted into the new facilities.
Infrastructure is a major component of fixing the ongoing regional health crisis. Your health is stronger thanks to state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, and it attracts and retains doctors, nurses and other health professionals in the regions.
Workforce continues to be dire, and I am working with Swan Hill District Health and other stakeholders on securing sustainable staff.
That’s why as soon as I became Shadow Assistant Minister in January 2023 I organised the national Regional Health Workforce Summit in Mildura, where those at the coalface and peak bodies worked together on solutions to the regional health workforce crisis.
The Summit informed the comprehensive regional health policies I have developed over almost two years for the Nationals in Coalition to take to the upcoming federal election. Country people continue to have poorer health and shorter lifespans, which is a gross injustice.
A clear and sensible short-term solution is to stop Labor robbing regions to buy votes in the cities, which they did by taking the specific, regions-only Distribution Priority Area for international medical graduates who come to Australia, with Labor adding suburban areas to the DPA as soon as Mr Albanese became Prime Minister.
Within six months there had been a near fifty per cent increase in doctors leaving the regions for the cities.
Longer term, we need to grow our own health workforce so that our young people don’t need to leave for medical, nursing or other health training – nor for most of their practical placement.
Swan Hill’s leap forward in health facilities protects your health, and a change of government will arrest the regional health decline under Labor.
