Regional Health Services

Ms PRATT (Frome) (15:10): I take this opportunity to touch on some regional health issues ahead of tomorrow's state budget. Minister Picton has an opportunity in his second budget to put regional SA back on the national health radar by offering greater incentives to attract doctors and nurses who are urgently needed in our country towns.

States like Victoria and Western Australia have already been aggressively poaching our frontline health workers with offers to pay their relocation costs, bonuses and study fees. WA is already offering 350 graduates the chance to have up to $12,000 of their HECS debt paid off, while our government has been quite sluggish and some of our country hospitals are on the brink of service collapse because they cannot fill the rosters that they have.

The Victorian government are so committed to competing for and stabilising their health workforce that they are offering $201 million in a range of initiatives that include $37 million in sign-on bonuses for new nursing graduates to encourage them to enter the public system and $32 million for medical graduate incentives to undertake general practitioner training. In Queensland, health workers who move from interstate will pocket $20,000 after completing a year of service in that state. Doctors in Queensland who take up jobs in regional areas will receive an additional $70,000.

A $5,000 cost-of-living bonus for nurses and midwives to train in the regions is also up for grabs. Thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, are on the table around the country while our state minister is slow to respond. It is not enough for the health minister here to say that he has incentives on the table. Interstate, they are redoubling their efforts and making second and third attempts to aggressively recruit frontline health workers from South Australia—and our health workforce are in their sights.

While our workforce is being poached, a lot more needs to be done for country patients as well. It has been my priority for a long time now to focus on country health patients and their need to access affordable transport to get to their treatment, which is often in the city. It should not be a hardship that, because they live in the country, there are extra and additional costs for them just to access the same level of treatment as metro patients, which is why I held a community forum late last year to bring attention to this inequity for many country patients in my electorate of Frome.

I am calling on Minister Picton to address the pleas that have been made by Kerry Rowlands, the CEO of the Cancer Council SA, who is also asking the state Labor government to increase the accommodation subsidy allowance within the Patient Assistance Transport Scheme. It is currently $40 a night for singles and $80 a night for couples. Country people who are diagnosed with cancer or other illnesses that require treatment have so many more decisions to make about leaving home—paying for fuel; organising arrangements for children or grandchildren, pets or livestock; making arrangements for work; and of course isolation from loved ones, not to mention the uncertainty of their own diagnosis and recovery.

When they arrive at the Cancer Council lodge on Greenhill Road, they benefit from all the comforts of home and the best of care, but cost-of-living pressures are also impacting on the standard of living. I think it is clear that it is essential that we see the government look at the accommodation subsidy of $40 and seek to increase it. The current rate is just not in line with cost of living, and it certainly does not cover in any way a hotel room.

South Australia's PATS accommodation rates remain the lowest of any state, risking many rural patients being left out of pocket. In some instances, people are choosing not to seek that treatment in the city at all. PATS plays an important role in assisting low-income earners in regional and remote South Australia. They are receiving life-saving treatment which is unavailable closer to home, and PATS plays an important role in ensuring that all South Australians have equitable access to treatment, no matter where they live. This second budget from Labor is another opportunity to prove to regional South Australians that they have not been forgotten.