Australian rural healthcare ailing with lack of funds: Report

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDJan 17 2011

The latest data shows that Medicare paid out at least $670 million less in rural Australia in 2006-07 for GP and other primary health services than it has done for the cities. A total of at least $2.1 billion every year is short in the public health expenditure for rural regions compared to cities. Also there is a $500 million underspend in rural areas on the PBS, and at least a $1 billion shortfall on dental and allied health.

The figures were revealed by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the National Rural Health Alliance. It added that the per capita Medicare gap between the bush and the cities widened by about 10 per cent between 2001 and 2007. Rural regions suffered from lack of primary care making residents prone to hospitalization leading to $830 million extra costs in 2006-07. In 2006-07 rural Australians missed out on 25 million services from doctors, diagnostic tests and PBS prescriptions. This means a deficit of more than 3.5 services and scripts for every rural man, woman and child.

Jenny May, chairwoman of the National Rural Health Alliance, which commissioned the AIHW report, said the rural deficit in health services “cannot be allowed to continue” adding that lack of spending means people were forced to get more expensive treatment in hospitals. The Rural Health Alliance’s executive director Gordon Gregory added, “I hope that the evidence which we have got today will ensure that the Government funds Medicare Locals in rural areas sufficiently to rebalance the rural health sector to spend the rights amounts of money up front, on illness prevention, early intervention… So we don’t have to spend so much money on the back end, on acute hospitals.”

The Health Minister’s office in response said that these figures are old and the Labor Government has already boosted rural health spending by nearly $800 million. The Federal Health Minister’s office said that the Howard Government took $1 billion out of health spending, and that Labor boosted it by $21 billion in 2008.