Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to congratulate the member for Farrer for bringing forward this very crucial and vital private member’s business and for the way she has put it together, with thought and commitment to her electorate and to rural and regional areas. I would like to support the member for Farrer in raising some of the issues that are certainly impacting upon rural and regional areas. My most significant concern at the moment is the lack of obstetricians being attracted to the Riverina region, and obviously to regions right across Australia but most particularly in New South Wales. We had a practising obstetrician in the public sector. He was overrun and overwrought and eventually, after telling the state government time after time that he could not continue like that, he eventually had to resign. In place of that local obstetrician we now have a 19,000-kilometre fly-in fly-out arrangement at the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital. We bring in an obstetrician from London. I will quote from the Wagga Wagga Daily Advertiser, which stated that ‘the costly travel exercise has been going on for 12 months’. The position on offer is for a Director of Obstetrics, but it has not been accepted by the obstetrician who has been flying in and flying out from London for 12 months now to the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital.

The practice of flying locums in to cover the shortage of doctors in Wagga Wagga has been at significant cost to the people—about $320,000 per doctor a year. But the problem that I would like to raise is that a doctor has been flying in and flying out from London to provide the service at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital and this position has not been advertised on the New South Wales Health website in order to give other candidates the opportunity to apply. That is of great concern. I think that that has been rectified since the doctor has determined that he is not going to take up residence, but this is where money is required—in recruitment and retention. We have a fabulous recruitment and retention committee in Wagga Wagga. I think it is unique. A group of specialists with private money have set up their own recruitment and retention workgroup. They have an executive officer who goes off to conferences and health gatherings of doctors all over the country recruiting specialists to come to the Riverina.

We have significant problems. Dialysis particularly in Wagga Wagga Base Hospital is certainly a challenge. Many people drive for many hours to receive dialysis three, four or five days a week, but family members have to wait outside in the car park for the five hours of dialysis time because there is nowhere in the Wagga Wagga Base Hospital for them to wait for their family member or the person they travelled with.

There has to be a different view on how we are going to attract particular specialty crafts. I refer back to obstetrics. There must be cooperation between midwifery and obstetrics. There needs to be a new model of care for obstetrics. Money should be allocated by government, including the state government, to encourage new models of how we are going to deliver services to rural and regional Australians. I am very pleased to have the A healthier future for all Australians—interim report December 2008, wherein there has been some consideration given as to how we start to resolve these issues. I would certainly encourage the government to have further talks with New South Wales— (Time expired)

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