OPINION
Dr Michael Holland MP, Member for Bega
I turned 18 in 1975, the year your older sibling, Medibank, was delivered by the Whitlam Labor government after a long and bitter ideological struggle against the coalition opposition.
The concept of providing the basic right of protection against the financial impact of health care on the most disadvantaged of our society introduced me to a life-long career in medicine.
Its principles of universality, equity, and choice, which apply to our other social determinants of health including the foundations of education, shelter, transport, and a protected environment formed my political perspective.
By my intern year in 1981, and after 5 major policy changes, the liberal national government had finally killed Medibank off.
I was a Postgraduate year 4 doctor when you were born on 1st February 1984, and the same founding principles determined my future career in women’s health.
In the words of Bob Hawke, “with this historic initiative, all Australians now have a new, simpler, and fairer health insurance system.”
You have given us a system of medical benefits which provides our out-of-hospital medical services, our diagnostic blood tests and imaging, as well as selected dental and allied health care.
You guarantee free treatment for public patients in public hospitals and support the cost of medical services for private patients in public and private hospitals.
You are complemented by the wonderful pharmaceutical benefits scheme which subsidises a wide range of pharmaceuticals.
Our lives change over forty years. and society changes.
Our population is ageing.
It is more diverse in demographics of ethnicity.
Women have won great change in the fight for their reproductive rights but still have not fully achieved universality, equity, and choice.
Others continue to fight for equity of healthcare in sexuality and gender.
We have the options of palliative care and voluntary assisted dying.
Our health problems are more complex and the difficulty of getting timely and affordable primary care leads to increased demands on our emergency departments and hospital wards and surgical services.
Demands, costs, and expectations increase.
There is a maldistribution of healthcare services in remote, rural, and regional areas compared to our metropolitan compatriots.
So, what can you get for your birthday?
It is not time for a mid-life crisis.
Primary health services are being supported by the Federal Labor government by increasing the incentives for bulk billing particularly in rural and remote areas.
The indexation of Medicare rebates have been increased by a historically large amount.
Improvements to primary health care include improved networking of individualised, comprehensive, multidisciplinary care as well as telehealth services.
Our local state health services need a strong, supported primary health care system.
Local emergency departments and hospital wards face the increased numbers of people whose medical problems have become more complex through the lack of access to general practitioners.
Apart from increasing rebates, governments need to examine new models of care which can work beside the transactional fee for service system.
This includes block funding for general practices and the successful model of bulk billed urgent care clinics which provide health services to the 55 per percent of individuals who do not need to be in an emergency department waiting room.
This has already started locally with federal-state cooperation at the Batemans Bay urgent care clinic.
The Bega electorate is fortunate to have excellent services at the South-East Regional Hospital, Bega.
The combined clinical services of the former Bega and Pambula district hospitals now gives the Bega valley residents a higher level of clinical care and reduces the outflow to Canberra and beyond.
The Eurobodalla community will be served by an increase in the number, breadth, and quality of clinical services provided locally when the single level 4 Eurobodalla hospital is completed.
With more than 26,000 emergency department presentations, nearly 1,500 surgical cases, over 11,000 admissions, and nearly 320 births per year, the combined clinical activity of Batemans Bay and Moruya district hospitals will exceed that of south-east regional and Goulburn district hospitals.
It will reduce the 44 per cent insufficiency in current local health services.
A single level 4 Eurobodalla regional hospital will provide an emergency department with onsite specialty assessment, onsite intensive care, access to acute surgery and a full range of emergency procedures and an emergency short stay unit.
These services will be provided by emergency medicine specialists available 24/7, as well as advanced skills clinical nurses.
The achievement of and commitment to these excellent local health services are the result of the establishment and support of Medicare by former and current Australian Labor governments.
As the member for Bega, I am proud to be able to work with the Minns NSW Labor government and my federal colleagues in the electorates of Eden-Monaro and Gilmore and provide these essential primary and hospital service to our community.