Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Recently, I hosted the Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss, in Rockhampton to turn the first sod of soil on construction of a $14 million health clinic and teaching facility at CQUniversity. With a shortage of allied health professionals in regional Australia, the facility will serve as a vital training clinic for university students studying various health courses. The stage 2 project will enhance an existing stage 1 clinic which has been up and running since 2012 and which currently sees up to 1,000 patients each week. This precinct provides a vital health service to North Rockhampton residents, and patients are referred to the clinic by local health practitioners.

The clinics are run in partnership with Queensland Health, and they deliver allied health services such as physiotherapy, speech pathology, occupational therapy, podiatry, pathology, nutrition and oral health. Part of the $14 million budget allocated to stage 2 will be spent on a clinic building and part will be spent on teaching classrooms. As the member for Capricornia, I am proud that such expert graduates will come from our own backyard. I am a great advocate for CQUniversity. This is Capricornia's own university, with centres across the globe, and it is a privilege to acknowledge yet another milestone in my electorate.