Member for Barwon calls for immediate independent audit of rural and regional public hospitals

Barwon MP Roy Butler has renewed his party’s call for an independent audit of rural and regional public hospital services and staffing.

This call follows the deeply concerning revelations in the Four Corners report Health Hazard.

Mr Butler says the government needs to undertake an immediate independent audit of rural and regional public hospitals to determine what services are missing or lacking from hospitals; and the distribution of the health workforce across the State.

“It’s time to make the health, welfare and safety of people across rural and regional NSW a priority,” said Mr Butler.

“We have hospitals that can’t deliver basic services. We have hospitals that can’t fill positions. We have dedicated medial staff speaking out about under resourced, unsafe facilities.

NSW Health’s own data paints a telling picture of what’s been allowed to happen to our rural and regional health services.

“The average life expectancy data shows that in the far west we’re now living shorter lives than we were 20 years ago,” said Mr Butler.

“It’s simply not good enough that Broken Hill has the highest potentially avoidable death rate in the State - 189 deaths per 100,000 people.”

Mr Butler says this audit is about developing an accurate picture of rural and regional health services to create a base for change.

“I’m calling on the government to conduct an audit to get a true picture of what’s going on in our rural and regional hospitals so we can develop a plan to start turning these figures around,” said Mr Butler.

“This really is a matter of life and death; and we’re well overdue for action.”