Professional News: February 2012

A home amongst the gum trees

I am one of the approximately 70,000 ANF members who choose to live in rural or remote Australia. Whilst I commute by train to the city daily for work I escape each evening to my ‘home among the gum trees’. Amidst the beauty of the countryside there are challenges, especially with access to health and aged care services. The ANF is one of the 32 national organisations in the National Rural Health Alliance, working collaboratively to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Australia's rural and remote areas. The Alliance is tireless in lobbying the Australian Government on a range of health care inequities experienced by country people, including Indigenous communities.

So it was with a sense of achievement the ANF joined with other Alliance member organisations in welcoming the newly established Rural and Regional Health Australia agency within the Department of Health and Ageing in November 2011. This initiative aims to improve access to information about health services for country people, through a central entry point: www.ruralhealthaustralia.gov.au

Importantly, it focuses attention on funding needs for the one third of the population who live outside metropolitan areas. Federal Minister for Regional Australia Simon Crean says the new agency will oversee significant rural health policy development and act as a strong advocate within government to ensure health programs cater for working Australians living in rural, remote and regional Australia.

During 2011 we reported on the work of the ANF federal professional team, which we will continue to be involved with over the next twelve months, to benefit our rural and remote members and their communities. This includes (but is not limited to):

• Health Workforce Australia National Rural and Remote Health Workforce Strategy.
• Telehealth.
• Personally controlled electronic health records.
• Practice Nurse Incentive Program.
• Australian Government funded scholarships for nurses and midwives.
• Working Safe in Rural and Remote Australia Project: this partners health professionals, teachers and police in developing a national framework for action for a whole-of-community response to working safely.

In 2012 there will be no time for sitting on the ‘veranda out the front’ in ‘an old rocking chair’. There is much work to do in rural and remote and Indigenous health care. On behalf of our members, the ANF is up for it!

Acknowledgment to HOME AMONG THE GUMTREES, Words and Music by B. Brown/W. Johnson © 1975 MUSHROOM MUSIC PTY LTD.

Elizabeth Foley
Federal Professional Officer