As seen on ABC News, 14 December 2017
Allegations that it’s “nearly impossible” for some regional people to access essential health services has prompted calls for a rethink of government spending.
The think tank Regional Australia Institute (RAI) has today released a score card assessing services in towns with fewer than 5,000 people.
Chief executive Jack Archer said, without improvements, regional people worried for the survival of their towns.
“It means that either you don’t have access to service or you’ve got to travel a long way,” he said.
“We know we have really significant mental health issues in regional areas.
“Often people are forced to leave these places and move somewhere else if they’ve got a really significant health or education need, which really undermines the ability of these towns to be successful.”
The RAI’s Small Towns Report Card gave small town access to psychologists, pre-school teachers and dentists an F-rating.
“This is getting more important and we’re not having the success we need,” Mr Archer said.
He said the problem was not a lack of money, but how governments allocated it.
“[Governments] often target what seems to be the problem everywhere and you get a real patchy outcome,” he said.
“So one of the really important things we’re emphasising is have a bit of flexibility and back local communities and local solutions because they can see these issues in a different way to other people.”
WA small town loses all its health services
A lot has changed since Gaye Fisher shifted to Ongerup, in Western Australia’s south west.
“In the 18 years I’ve been here the population has probably dropped by half to two thirds,” she said.
During that time, the town has lost its sporting teams and almost lost a general store, until the community rallied to save it.
Ms Fisher is a nurse who lives on a farm and volunteers with the local ambulance service — the only health service in town.
“We used to have a GP visiting many years ago but that has fallen by the way,” she said.
“If people want to see a GP the nearest GP is in Jerramungup, about 40 kilometres to the east, or Gnowangerup which is 55km to the west or Albany and Katanning, which are much further.”
Ms Fisher said she feared for her region’s future without better health services.
“You’ll wait an hour for an ambulance to come or you’ve got to put the person in the car yourself and manage it and, yeah, that’s hard,” she said.
Small town early childhood development issues
The RAI has tracked the availability of health and educational services in regional towns for 30 years.
Mr Archer said small town populations have grown as services have declined over the last three decades.
He said that coincides with higher rates of early childhood development issues in rural and remote areas.
The RAI report found, nationally, small regional towns close to cities have seen an 85 per cent growth in professional services.
In rural and remote areas they have only grown 7 per cent.
Mr Archer said since 1981 the per capita rate of preschool teachers in small towns had also fallen below the national average.
Bureaucracy hampering efforts to attract GPs to regional Queensland
It’s not just in remote towns that are struggling to attract health workers.
The Queensland coastal town of Moore Park also cannot get a GP, despite being 25 kilometres north of Bundaberg.
Pharmacist Adam Harradine said the lack of a local doctor put people’s health at risk.
“People have delayed going to a GP on a pharmacist’s referral mainly because they can’t get into Bundaberg, they’re perhaps too sick to drive or they just don’t have time,” he said.
Because Moore Park is so close to Bundaberg, it means the town misses out on being classified as a district of workforce shortage.
Mr Harradine said that made it difficult to recruit doctors.
“Also there’s more strain on ambulances that get called out here for what may be a complaint seen by a GP,” he said.
“Because of the lack of a local [GP], they phone an ambulance and that puts strain on the State Government.”
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