Play the next few years right, and health outside of the major cities could start looking very different.
‘Accessibility’ has been the word of the day at the Rural Medicine Australia conference, which kicked off today in Perth.
Hosted by ACRRM and the RDAA, the conference is set to act as a melting pot for all professions under the rural health umbrella to collaborate on what the future has in store for rural health.
This conference has been touted as especially pivotal after a federal election that focused so greatly on healthcare accessibility, and hot off the back of rural generalism getting official specialty recognition.
“I do want to say to you that your presence reflects the extraordinary commitment of rural practitioners, the broad skills that you have, the deep resilience, and resourcefulness that is the backbone of hospital and community health services,” WA health minister Meredith Hammat told delegates.
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“My time growing up in a rural community taught me the values that have really unpinned all of the work that I’ve done through my working life, and I know that you will understand and share a lot of those values.
“Values like hard work, values like community service, and particularly the value of taking care of other people, because that’s just what you do in the country.”
Access to care for neurodivergent conditions and culturally safe care listed as priorities by the government.
“We need to take a long term fit for purpose approach to ensure that we’re competitive against what’s on offer in other states, but also to ensure we’re competitive in rural regional areas about what some offer in metropolitan Western Australia,” Ms Hammat said.
“Rural and regional sites remain particularly vulnerable with strong competition for talent placing significant pressure on recruitment nationally.
“We’re working hard to make it easier and more attractive for doctors to obtain rural generalist contracts, helping to stabilise the rural medical workforce and reduce reliance on locums.”
In his last plenary address as RDAA president, Dr RT Lewandowski III emphasised the pivotal state that rural health is in and how this could challenge Australian healthcare.
“I found it very difficult to keep a focus on rural health to a government that I don’t really think sees that as a key priority,” Dr Lewandowski said.
“We did get unprecedented representation and inclusion, and now the challenging work of these reviews being put into action, we are at the table, and we are going to work hard to make sure the voice is heard.”
