We asked Jeremy Rockliff and Rebecca White how they'd improve health care access in regional Tasmania. Video by Aaron Smith and Paul Scambler (22/3/24)
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00:00 Hi, my name's Craig Thompson. I'm the editor of the Launceston Examiner.
00:03 Today we continue our series of reader questions for the Premier and the Opposition Leader.
00:07 Regional Tasmania is struggling with healthcare access.
00:11 What is being done to improve the access to healthcare needs outside the city areas?
00:16 It's certainly a priority of mine. We've talked a lot about expanding services at our 18 regional
00:22 hospitals, making them available for 24/7 access for people who need urgent healthcare treatment,
00:28 providing staffing for nurse practitioners, rural generalists and allied health professionals,
00:33 as well as expanding services at our 23 community health centres across the state
00:38 to provide health checks for young people as they're, well kids really, as they're going to
00:41 school, teenage mental health checks as well as other people who need a general health check-up.
00:47 This is going to make a big difference for people who live outside the cities because
00:50 there are lots of pressures on people who live in regional Tasmania. I live in regional Tasmania,
00:55 it's a great place to live, but a lot of the services haven't had adequate investment and
00:59 support over the last 10 years and that's something I want to change.
01:02 It has been very difficult and part of our 2030 Strong Plan for Tasmania's future is more GPs.
01:08 Now we recognise that we're stepping in, where the Federal Government have not stepped up,
01:14 frankly. What we are doing is ensuring greater access to GPs, more community paramedics,
01:21 27 more community paramedics as well, but also a number of areas around regional Tasmania,
01:30 sometimes they, and more frequently of late, have found it hard to staff those community centres
01:37 with GPs. We're going to have a GP guarantee where we have a pool of GPs that can spring into action,
01:46 if you like, when there is a vacancy or a hard to staff area for the GPs in rural and regional
01:53 Tasmania and so that continuity of care will indeed continue. We're also encouraging young
01:59 Tasmanians and people from interstate to come to Tasmania and actually go into general practice.
02:07 We're paying their HECS fees. That's a huge incentive to get more GPs, more people trained
02:12 to be GPs, and incentivising them to be in the regions. Access to GPs alleviates our pressures
02:19 on our emergency departments, which we're also investing in, particularly the Launceston General
02:23 Hospital, but also when it comes to access to healthcare, when it comes to our nurse practitioners
02:28 expansion, when it comes to more paramedics, when it comes to community paramedics, more GPs, we're
02:33 also allowing our pharmacies to do more as well so we can increase that access to people's healthcare
02:40 needs through their pharmacies as well.
02:42 [END]
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