COUNCILS BACK RURAL HEALTH PLAN

A statewide campaign for better health services in rural and regional communities is gaining momentum, with six more local councils lending their support to the plan.    

Launched in September last year, the plan now has the support of 13 NSW local councils.    

The councils - along with Local Government NSW, the Country Mayors’ Association and the Riverina Regional Organisation of Councils – have all formally supported Dr Joe McGirr’s Rural Health Action Plan.    

The plan is a six-point roadmap for better regional, rural and remote health services and now has the support of almost 50 different professional and community organisations.    

Dr McGirr, who is the Independent Member for Wagga Wagga, said the support of the council groups sent a strong message to the government that regional communities want change.   

“Local councils are at the heart of community representation and know better than most that their communities are not getting the healthcare they deserve, and I greatly appreciate their support as a way of making the government understand that now is the time to make a real and lasting commitment to better health services,” Dr McGirr said.    

“Regional councils are willing and able to play an active part in solving the problems in their local healthcare, but we need to see active collaboration from all parts of the system.   

“Councils have passed individual motions in support of my plan which is a powerful way of adding local voices to a campaign that is gaining traction day by day.”    

The councils that have endorsed the RHAP are:  

  • Bathurst Regional Council  

  • Bourke Shire Council  

  • Broken Hill City Council  

  • Coolamon Shire Council  

  • Cootamundra - Gundagai Regional Council 

  • Hay Shire Council  

  • Lismore City Council  

  • Lockhart Shire Council  

  • Narrabri Shire Council  

  • Snowy Valleys Council  

  • Temora Shire Council  

  • Tweed Shire Council, and  

  • Weddin Shire Council  

  

The plan’s key reforms are a GP guarantee for communities, birthing closer to home, giving communities a real say in their health service delivery, establishing a commissioner to take accountability and leadership for service delivery, setting up a single system to oversee operations and replacing fly-in, fly-out health staff with local professionals living and working in the communities they serve.    

“These reforms can be delivered without excessive cost to the government,” Dr McGirr said.   

“To have the support of councils from such diverse areas of the state shows that rural and regional communities are united in their desire for better health care and I thank all councillors and staff for acting so decisively to improve outcomes for their residents.    

“I look forward to working with them – and indeed with the almost-50 members of my Better Care Closer to Home Alliance to bring the government on board and underwrite the future of country communities by providing the health services needed to realise their potential.”  

 

 

 

Joe McGirr