Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to inform the Committee of the savage attack being made on rural hospitals by the South Australian government. It will impact so strongly on the communities to which these hospitals belong that, for many of them, it will be seen as the beginning of the end. The proposal is to downgrade 43 rural units into what the South Australian government is calling GP Plus Emergency Hospitals. In-patient services will be closed and limited beds will be available only for things like aged care and 24-hour observations. Maternity services, acute care and general surgical services will all be discontinued. The Rural Doctors Association are outraged and they question whether they will be able to practise in the affected towns. The ramifications of this outcome are enormous. It will lead to people who are seeking health care driving or taking ambulances hundreds of kilometres to reach the nearest ‘proper’ hospital.

Rural people have made it clear to the Rann government that the plan is totally unacceptable. Far from the government’s claims about improved services, this plan attacks rural communities at their foundations. No meaningful consultation has taken place. The reduction of hospital services to rural communities will lead to doctors leaving rural areas. This, in turn, will lead to the loss of allied health professionals and nursing staff and, eventually, the ability to provide aged care for community members. Twenty-three of the 43 hospitals adversely affected in South Australia are in my electorate, and I object strongly to the inevitable blanket destruction of these rural communities by a government that would abandon rural Australia. I call on the federal government to intervene and on the Prime Minister to live up to his promise to fix hospitals and to govern for all Australians. (Time expired)