PM: This National Health and Hospital Network is about delivering better health and better hospital services to working families, pensioners, carers, right across Australia, a Network which is to be funded nationally but run locally through local hospital networks who know best what their local communities need - like here, in Far North Queensland.
Just over nine months ago, when I was here for a consultation with the team from Cairns Base Hospital on the future of the Australian health and hospital system, many here told us about the pressures being faced by allied health professionals.
In fact, when I was here last time the director of allied health raised with us the following: that allied health services outside of metropolitan areas were very, very stretched and we needed to do much more to support allied health professionals working in the bush and provide support to attract them to the bush, and today we return to respond to that need.
As part of our plan to deliver better health and better hospitals services to all Australians, regardless of where they live, the Government will invest funds to double the number of scholarships for allied health students to undertake a clinical placement in a rural area from 100 such scholarships a year to 200 each year, providing 1,000 additional scholarships for allied health students over the decade ahead.
We'll also establish 100 allied health locum placements each year, which will support 1,000 allied health workers over the decade ahead. That's to make it possible, for the first time, for allied health professionals working in regional and rural areas to have a break and to be replaced while they have a break. This has not existed in the past. This is new, and it is part of the consultation that we had here locally with this health community here in Far North Queensland. We listened hard to it and worked out how can we make this work better for the good people of Far North Queensland, but more broadly across the nation.
So, we're taking concrete steps towards ensuring that all Australians can get the health services they need, and where they need them, and when they need them.
I'm told this, as well - in the major cities there are something like 354 allied health professionals per 100,000 people, but in very remote areas, that can be only 64 allied health professionals per 100,000 people. We are determined to start to close this gap. We can't tackle this discrepancy over night, but these are concrete actions in this direction, and these are significant measures.