Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

In my maiden speech I made the statement that your health status should not depend on your postcode. I adhere to that statement. I committed then to fighting for my regional communities to improve access to health care and an increased professional workforce, and I continue to do so. I moved to the country 44 years ago, as an 18-year-old bride married to a young intern who began his internship and junior residency at the Mildura Base Hospital, undertaking training in anaesthetics. He then became a GP and completed additional training in obstetrics. Phillip was a very busy GP, with over 1,000 births in just a few years. He spent 44 years in a country practice where doctors shared after-hour calls and obstetric calls and had alternate weekends on duty—it was a heavy workload. Today, things are different, though I will say that rural GPs, such as rural generalists, can work just as hard. In places such as Mildura, GPs choose to take on registrars, resulting in some staying and therefore increasing the workforce in those areas. Not all towns and practices have that option.

This government recognises the need to invest in our regional communities to ensure we get the health care we need when we need it. Many of the challenges relating to healthcare service delivery, particularly in my electorate of Mallee, relate to workforce. We simply do not have the people to deliver the services we need in our communities. The workforce we do have is stretched to the limit, especially now, during the pandemic. The commitment and sacrifice shown by frontline workers in my electorate through this difficult period are a demonstration of why our regional areas are such a wonderful place to live. But we cannot dodge the key issue: we need more people. We need highly trained doctors, nurses, radiologists, physios and other allied health professionals. The problems facing healthcare delivery in regional areas are not going to go away until we get the right people. That's where the government's initiatives to train, attract and retain medical professionals in rural communities become so important.

For example, from 1 January 2022 the Morrison-Joyce government is investing more than $65 million in boosting bulk-billing rebates and providing more affordable health care for patients in regional areas. We are introducing a new progressive incentives schedule that increases the value of the rural bulk-billing incentive based on remoteness. This will enhance the financial viability of practices in rural and remote areas as well as reduce the gap paid by patients. The more remote the area, the greater the incentive payment. This will be done to recognise the greater challenges and cost pressures of providing health care in regional areas. The new rural bulk-billing incentive will support those GPs providing services to people in greatest need and those who have the lowest capacity to pay for health care. The new rural incentive rates are a key reform we have delivered to attract more doctors to the bush.

The legislation currently before the House builds on the coalition government's workforce training and primary care reforms. The Health Insurance Amendment (Enhancing the Bonded Medical Program and Other Measures) Bill 2021 provides additional flexibility to enhance the implementation of the bonded medical program. The bonded medical program is a key policy which aims to provide more Australian doctors to areas of need, particularly in regional and remote Australia. The proposed amendments will address unintended consequences in the interests of participants and will also support achievement of the program's objectives. The proposed amendments will provide the necessary flexibility to administer the program and to address issues that are having a direct impact on participants. If the bill is not passed in the 2021 spring sittings, the issues directly affecting participants—most of whom are medical professionals providing crucial health services in regional, rural and remote Australia at this critical time—will remain unresolved. This is unacceptable. The additional flexibility provided for by this legislation will enhance participation in the program and will therefore improve health outcomes for regional Australians. Increasing the availability of appropriately trained doctors is a key factor in improving our health outcomes.

While we are delivering these key amendments, we also need to look to the future. Retaining skilled people is a key challenge in the bush. We know that training people in the regions significantly increases the likelihood that a student will live and remain in the regional area. Train local; stay local. That's what I'm focused on, particularly for my electorate of Mallee. Training home-grown talent to meet our health needs is the most sustainable solution to the problems we face. One of my key aims is to assist in the establishment of an undergraduate biomedical degree at our local La Trobe University campus in Mildura. The idea is then to link the undergraduate biomed degree to a postgraduate medical degree at Melbourne university's Shepparton campus or, alternatively, Mildura. This would create a pathway for rural students to complete end-to-end medical training in regional Victoria. I'm fully behind this proposal and have taken it directly to the Minister for Regional Health, whom I know is on board. I've also spent many, many Zoom meetings with the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University, Professor John Dewar.

Within the first six months of taking up the role as the member for Mallee, I held stakeholder meetings with health service providers across Mallee to seek to understand where they saw the gaps and the issues. It became very clear that an innovative model would be necessary to meet the health needs of our rural, regional and remote communities. I put together a healthcare policy document which addressed the gaps and provided solutions. As such, an integrated model, which reaches out to rural towns, appears to be the ultimate solution—a heart and artery model or a hub and spoke model of primary and allied healthcare. Mallee Track in Ouyen provides such a service and reaches out to small, rural towns in that region. Lois O'Callaghan is the CEO of Mallee Track, and I've spent many sessions talking with her about how it could be improved. At the moment, they struggle to get a GP—to simply get a doctor to work at that practice. It puts a tremendous load on the service delivery.

The team approach is working very well in other states, and I have spoken with the Minister for Health and the Minister for Regional Health about this concept for Mallee. I've discussed with them the need for a mix of block funding and Medicare funding to provide services by allied and primary health professionals who work together as a team. The benefit of a team approach is that it shares the load of health delivery. A team that communicates and plans and that manages patient needs, whether that happens under one roof or over several locations, would bring an enhanced healthcare model and, undoubtedly, increase our workforce at the same time.

The health space in my electorate is continually expanding, and this government is backing us to deliver more of the services we need locally. The coalition government invested $6.5 million to purchase new equipment for a radiation oncology service in Mildura. The service will be established at the Mildura Health Private Hospital and will be open to both public and private patients. A radiation oncology centre in Mildura is another step towards improved health outcomes for regional Victorians. Thankfully, cancer patients in Mildura and surrounds will no longer have to travel long hours away from home in order to receive life-saving radiation cancer treatment. Of course, the pandemic has exacerbated this issue, and there have been many patients who have had treatments delayed or have had an inability to get the treatment that they need. This would be solved with the implementation of this radiation bunker.

It comes down, however, to workforce. In Mallee we are ambitious and we see a bright future for Mallee as a tri-state health hub. Discussion and planning for a new hospital in Mildura has begun at the state government level, which is greatly appreciated. A new hospital is undoubtedly necessary to keep pace with our population growth and greater demand for services. We need the new hospital to be a tertiary training hospital, with capacity for specialist referrals. We can't keep shipping our most sick patients off to Bendigo, Adelaide and Melbourne. People in the region deserve the best quality healthcare close to home.

This is an ambitious goal but a critical one. This is why we need to implement measures now to secure the workforce for the future. We need to have new local training opportunities. We need to continue incentivising doctors to work in the bush and to create innovative models of healthcare delivery to address workforce shortages. This government is getting on with the job. Measures contained in this bill will work towards a brighter future for healthcare delivery in the regions.

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