Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to alert the House to an ongoing issue that is of particular concern to the residents of my electorate. As the largest electorate in Tasmania, Lyons contains some of the most isolated populations. However, although Tasmania looks small to many who may merely consult a map, it is in fact about twice the area of Switzerland, and my electorate covers over 60 per cent of that area—which I guess means that my electorate is bigger than Switzerland. On the other hand, Tasmania has nowhere near the population of Switzerland and, as I said before, there are some isolated populations. These communities seem to be continually fighting to keep their services. Rest assured that I have been there beside them and will continue to be so.

A fight that I continually seem to be part of is the fight for GP services. Once again, this is an area where the federal government has failed—at a time when the federal Minister for Health and Ageing is going around saying that he wants control of hospitals because the states are not managing them properly and he wants to see outcomes. Well, I want to see outcomes too, for the people of Lyons. None of Tasmania’s largest hospitals are in Lyons. People in Lyons have to travel to have surgery. People in Lyons have to travel for some specialist services. And some have to travel to see a GP.

The government do not have a plan to help fix this. They want to take over the hospitals. They want to blame the state governments for the way they run hospitals. Instead of doing something about the problems in health, they want to blame. You cannot blame the states for the situation with GPs, because that is an area where responsibility lies fairly and squarely at the federal government’s feet. The government have failed to provide enough training of medical students to ensure that we have enough GPs. After 11 years, the responsibility for this rests with them. Of course, it is not only GPs that they have failed to train enough of; it is also nurses and allied health workers, and the list goes on.

Many areas in my electorate now rely on foreign doctors. But even they often struggle to obtain a provider number. They are only allowed to work in a district of workforce shortage. This is fair enough. But what if the area in which they want to work is a small one and is seen as only offering enough work for part-time practice? What if that doctor wants to work full time? What if they agree to work part time in the district of workforce shortage and make up the hours to full time with some part-time work in an area close by? Unless that area is also an area of workforce shortage, they cannot.

This happened to one of the communities in my electorate towards the latter part of last year. As a result, the local hospital acute care beds were closed. Without a doctor to manage the admissions and care of the patients, the beds had to be closed. Of course, it is not just the acute care of members of the community that suffers; the general health and wellbeing of people also suffer. After all, we know that prevention is better than cure—at least, those of us on this side of the House are aware of this.

We heard recently of the potential economic burden of not facing the reality of climate change. Labor has also put forward a policy on educational revolution, on the basis that it makes good economic sense as much as it is a social issue. We also believe health is an economic issue. Some 70 per cent of the total disease burden in Australia and 78 per cent of all deaths fall within just six disease groups. These are: cardiovascular problems, cancers, injuries, mental problems, diabetes and asthma. In all of these cases, improved health promotion and prevention strategies could prevent the disease concerned or reduce its impact.

In 2004-05 only 1.7 per cent of the recurrent health expenditure was directed to areas such as health promotion and prevention. In 2001 about one million Australians had type 2 diabetes. It is estimated that by 2031 the number will be three million—that is a threefold increase. According to Access Economics, in 2005 the net cost of type 2 diabetes was $11.6 billion. That is roughly the cost of running Medicare and that is more than the cost of the package put together by the government to fix the Murray-Darling Basin water issue. And this is the cost of just one disease. But that is how they work, and we all know that. They wait until someone gets sick and then decide to fix the problem, just as they waited for the river system to be sick before they decided to do anything about it—until there was an election year and they decided that they had a political problem so they found some money to throw at it.

They have a narrow view of what health actually is. The World Health Organisation sees health as ‘more than just the absence of disease’. The government have failed to put enough emphasis on the economics of preventable illness. Australia has a ‘sickcare’ system rather than a healthcare system. They have failed to deliver a healthcare system to Australians and to those in rural areas. Healthy populations drive wealthier economies. Health is linked to workforce participation. It is also a major factor in determining productivity among workers. Doctors do more than just treat the ill. The general practitioner plays a significant role in assisting people to stay well, and we should recognise that fact. Because of their isolation, rural communities always suffer more.

The government has failed my electorate as much as any in its failure to develop a long-term plan with long-term goals and long-term solutions to ensure that communities receive all the levels of health care that they deserve—from general practice to preventative programs. We need a government with some vision, some awareness and some strategies for the long-term future. This is a shameful approach by this government to rural health. My electorate of Lyons grieves.