Archived Media Releases: 28 October 2007

Calling for action on rural health
Rural Health Week of Action, Sunday 28 October to Monday 5th November 2007

The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) is calling on all the major political parties to commit to action to address rural and remote health issues.

Through Rural Health Week of Action, the ANF aims to highlight the disparities in health outcomes between people living in rural and remote Australia and those living in metropolitan centres.

ANF assistant federal secretary Ged Kearney said people in rural and remote areas were disadvantaged in terms of access to health services, and experienced poorer health outcomes.

“As well as contending with the challenges of the drought and climate change, rural people have been hit with over a decade of closures of basic health services, and a declining health workforce.

The ANF is calling on the major political parties to improve the situation for people living in rural and remote Australia and calls for a Rural Health Obligation to ensure that all rural Australians have better access to nurses, midwives, doctors, and other health professionals in local rural hospitals and health services.

“Urgent action is required to address the chronic shortage of nurses, midwives, doctors, and other health professionals across rural Australia,” Ms Kearney said.

“At present, 30% of our nation’s population are living in rural and remote locations – they should therefore have access to 30% of the health funding so they can have equity of access to essential health services.

“We need proper incentives, which are equitable across all the health professions, to attract nurses, midwives, doctors and other health professionals to work in rural and remote settings. The work is challenging but enormously rewarding – given sufficient incentives, many health professionals would love to work in the bush. But they must be adequately remunerated and provided with allowances that make it an attractive career choice.”

Ms Kearney said additional efforts must be made to attract students from rural and remote communities into the health professions.

“We know that rural origin is a significant predictor of rural practice – so greater efforts must be made to make it easier for rural and remote students to access health professional education, as they are more likely to work in rural or remote areas once they graduate.

“The federal government are promising tax cuts at a time when hospitals and health services are massively under-funded – this money would be better spent addressing the national skills shortages and funding health properly,” Ms Kearney said.

 

Media Contacts
Jill Iliffe, Federal Secretary 0419 576 590
Ged Kearney, ANF Assistant Federal Secretary 0417 053 322

 

The ANF, representing 150,000 members, is the professional and industrial voice for nurses and midwives in Australia