THE Country Women’s Association (CWA) of NSW’s Singleton branch recently launched its annual Awareness Week campaign, this year raising awareness of a widening gap between health care services in country communities and those in metropolitan centres.
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Branch president Sarah Lukeman says the ongoing erosion of health care services in rural and regional areas is one of their greatest concerns, although Singleton has better services than many.
“Seven million Australians live outside our major cities, representing a significant proportion of the nation’s population, which should count for something when governments are splitting up the health care dollars,” she said.
“But, for too long, the needs of rural and regional communities have been ignored and the inequity has grown to the point many of these towns, and even our regional cities, are facing a health care crisis.”
This year’s Awareness Week campaign calls for improvement in a number of key areas:
* Shortage of GPs in rural and regional areas;
* Difficulty recruiting specialists, specialist nurses and allied health care professionals;
* Poor access to dental care;
* Shortage of drug and alcohol support and rehabilitation services;
* Shortage of mental health services;
* Lack of support (psychological) for those with chronic or terminal illness in rural areas and their families/carers; and
* Downgrading of local hospitals, including the fact blood stocks are no longer on hand at many smaller NSW hospitals.
The National Rural Health Alliance says those in rural, regional and remote Australia access medical services at half the rate; medical specialists at a third of the rate; and mental health and allied health professionals at a quarter the rate of those in metropolitan Australia.
“Reduced access to services – and the often exorbitant costs associated with having to travel away for specialised care – results in poorer health outcomes for country Australians and in a wealthy country like Australia, that’s simply not good enough,” Ms Lukeman explained.
“For too long rural and regional communities have seen local hospitals lose the likes of vital maternity services, they’ve struggled to access drug and alcohol support facilities, seeing a specialist involves either lengthy waits or they’re forced to travel away, and now many smaller hospitals don’t even keep blood products onsite.”
According to a 2017 Medical Journal of Australia report, access to medical specialists in major cities stood at 162.1 full-time equivalent specialists per 100 000 population, but diminished significantly for people living in inner or outer regional (82.7 and 61.5 per 100 000 respectively) and remote areas (34.2 per 100 000).
The latest Pillars of Communities report revealed that between 1981 and 2011, the percentage of small towns with a dentist dropped from an already low nine per cent to just five per cent.
And, a 2015 Royal Flying Doctors Service report showed cavities in country children were 55 per cent higher than city children, with almost 40 per cent of adults in the bush suffering untreated tooth decay, compared to less than a quarter in the city.
“These are basic health care needs that people in metropolitan areas take for granted,” Ms Lukeman said.
The availability of drug and alcohol rehab facilities in country NSW has long been a source of concern and, last September, a NSW Upper House inquiry was established to investigate the provision of rehabilitation services in regional, rural and remote NSW.
It followed the release of figures by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre that revealed the number of deaths relating to methamphetamine use had doubled in seven years – between 2009 and 2015 – with nearly half of those in regional Australia.
“Concerns about health care services in regional and rural areas of NSW were the catalyst for the formation of the CWA of NSW all those years ago, and it’s an issue we’ve been lobbying on ever since,” Ms Lukeman said.
As part of CWA of NSW Awareness Week, the Singleton Branch hosted a cake stall and raffle at the Singleton Hospital’s new entrance opening on Saturday, September 8, raising funds for drought relief.
Local women interested in joining the Singleton branch of the CWA of NSW can contact Ms Lukeman on 0427 191 724 or visit the CWA hall at 1B Pitt St on any Friday morning.