Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I start by adding my voice to the many condolences today for those in Victoria who have had a harrowing few days. Our thoughts and sympathies are with them. I will talk more about that situation in the debate on the condolence motion in the Main Committee.

I now want to talk about some health initiatives in my electorate of Franklin. It was my pleasure a week or so ago to announce over $400,000 going to a small community in my electorate for rural health. It came from the National Rural and Remote Health Infrastructure Program, which is a result of the government’s election commitment to reform the Rural Medical Infrastructure Fund. The government is committed to improving important projects in rural and regional communities. We all know the importance of those projects, particularly as they have been highlighted to us in the last few days. The National Rural and Remote Health Infrastructure Program was funded in the budget and there will be $46 million over four years to provide rural and remote communities with strategic planning for small rural private hospitals. This is to improve health services by funding projects where a lack of infrastructure is a barrier to the establishment of new health services.

I was recently talking to one of my local councils, the Huon Valley Council in southern Tasmania, about some issues that they have had with GPs and retaining GP services. A GP recently retired in the small town of Geeveston, and attracting other GPs to the area was causing them great difficulty. The money that we have announced will give them a real boost and help improve the Geeveston Medical Centre. Improvements were undertaken by the council that are quite extensive, including things like home visits, hospital and nursing home visits, family planning, antenatal care, cardiac monitoring, hearing tests, counselling, vaccinations, childhood immunisations, minor surgical procedures, sports medicine, nutritional advice and others. The new medical centre, as I said, was left to fill the gap left by a doctor retiring. Because of this new medical centre and the funding that it has received, the council has been able to attract two new GPs from overseas to the area. That has really expanded the services available to the local community and has been a great success. As I said, they were able to recruit these doctors from overseas to service the local community when the local GP retired.

Some of the money will also be going to the Esperance Multi Purpose Health Centre in Dover. They are going to make some improvements there, including additional consulting rooms, improved waiting areas for patients, improved reception areas for visitors and patients, separate ensuites in the two acute care rooms, rearrangement of consulting rooms and construction of a new staff room to cater for training requirements. There will be new equipment purchased, including new electric beds, an overhead lifting system for patients, medical equipment, an examination bed for an emergency room as well as other furnishings and medical equipment. The multipurpose centre at Dover, as its name suggests, is multipurpose. The facility will also provide residential aged care, acute care for inpatients and outpatients, respite services, independent unit accommodation for the elderly, a private GP medical practice and rooms for visiting health professionals. A palliative care facility is also due to open in March this year and will provide a much needed service to those in the area.

So there have been improvements at Geeveston and at the Esperance Multi Purpose Health Centre in Dover, which is about an hour’s drive from Hobart. It is quite a rural community that really needs this funding and infrastructure. I was really pleased to be able to provide that support to the local community with the recent announcement. Initiatives like these support and build local communities, and I was very proud to be a part of that announcement.

The other initiative in my electorate that I wanted to talk about just quickly was the GP super clinic. The federal government has recently signed off to the state government on the GP Superclinic; $5.5 million will come from the federal government and money will also be coming from the state government. This initiative has been very well received. The federal government carried out consultations last year, and there will be a whole heap of services provided at the new GP Superclinic. It will provide multiprofessional care, bringing together health professionals from general practice, community health and allied health services. It is a much-needed facility in my electorate. It was very well received as an election commitment and I am very proud to deliver on that election commitment. The GP Superclinic will be part of an integrated care centre that the state government will build. This has been a very important health win for the people of Franklin. (Time expired)