The Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) has launched its federal election platform to draw attention to rural healthcare.
According to the RDAA 2016 Election Platform, the Get Real on Rural! campaign has called for the Federal Government to increase funding and resources for, and provide improved access to, rural healthcare services.
RDAA President Dr Ewen McPhee said the Federal Government has increased the rural health budget deficit and cost the taxpayer in hospital-based admissions and delayed treatment of chronic disease.
"The time has come for our next Federal Government to take an holistic approach to rural healthcare, and to level the playing field so rural and remote Australians start to receive the level of access to local health services that they need and deserve,” she said.
"For too many years, people living in Australia’s rural and remote communities have been disadvantaged by a chronic under-spend of the health dollar in rural and remote areas - the National Rural Health Alliance has found that there is a total health deficit in rural and remote areas of at least $2.1 billion a year.
“This equates to a shortage of 25 million services, and includes the rural Medicare deficit which has now reached nearly $1 billion a year.
"Rural and remote Australians continue to suffer from much poorer access to health services, significantly higher rates of disease and injury, worse health outcomes and a significantly shorter life expectancy compared to people living in major cities.”
The platform has called for the development of a national rural health plan to address systemic healthcare deficits, provide funding to support generalist medical services and implement the joint RDAA/AMA Rural Rescue Package, end the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) indexation freeze and provide funding to support rural mental health services.
