Thriving Regions Fund

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (14:54): My question is to the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development on the Thriving Regions Funds Enabling Infrastructure Program. Will the minister update the chamber on the recent funding announcement for the Royal Flying Doctor Service?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:54): I thank the honourable member for his question. It is with great pleasure that I announced funding of $1 million through the state government's Enabling Infrastructure Program recently to the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) South Australia and Northern Territory towards its project to construct a state-of-the-art health research and education centre for the state's Far North.

The project will bring together a multidisciplinary primary health centre, University of Adelaide Medical School, RFDS local health training amenities and a new School of the Air headquarters in Port Augusta, with a total cost of $21 million. The RFDS operations communications centre is located at the Port Augusta base, from which the operations coordinators receive emergency calls, plan and design all 24-hour emergency retrieval and inter-hospital transfer flights from Adelaide, Alice Springs, Port Augusta and Darwin, while also providing after-hours backup for the Broken Hill base.

The Port Augusta base is headquarters of the RFDS primary healthcare service, which serves an area of 840,000 square kilometres, providing comprehensive primary healthcare services to residents in the far west and north-west regions of South Australia. Current services include 24-hour telehealth consultations and remote fly-in primary healthcare clinics, offering specialist chronic disease, mental health, oral health, maternal health, breast cancer and community health nurses/clinicians. In addition to the core of doctors, pilots, flight nurses, engineers and operations coordinators, the Aboriginal Health Coordinator, community health nurses, lifestyle adviser, dentist and dental hygienist are based in Port Augusta, enabling them to focus on serving people in isolated communities.

The new facility will form the foundation for the provision of rural and remote health care in remote Australia and provide increased access to multidisciplinary primary health care for the local community, and for more than 1,600 existing RFDS patients who live remotely and visit Port Augusta regularly. Once established, it is anticipated that the centre will be a hub for health, research and education, attracting rural generalists and specialists in providing health care in the bush and an opportunity for junior doctors wanting to develop this speciality. This will then in turn provide certainty in the employment stream of medical officers to deliver the RFDS medical services well into the next decades.

I am advised the Port Augusta facility will contribute $31.25 million to gross state product, the equivalent of 222 full-time jobs, and will employ 17 new full-time employees as a result of the project. Initially, the clinic will support up to 25,000 patient consultations every year, spanning across general practice, mental health, occupational therapy, chronic disease management, Aboriginal health, digital health and oral health.

In partnership with tertiary and vocational education partners, the centre will also serve as an education and training base, offering placements for medical, nursing and allied health students. Additionally, it will host postgraduate students to undertake research and practice, improving long-term rural health outcomes. The key to this is how it will enable the future in terms of assisting with things such as training for the medical workforce.

We know how difficult it is to attract health professionals to regional areas, and this project will be key to assisting with that. It will support the development of infrastructure for the wider benefit of our regional communities, which is a key goal of the Enabling Infrastructure Program. Enhancing and supporting our resilient regional communities is vitally important and is why this program and other initiatives through the Thriving Regions Fund have such strong support from the state government. I thank the RFDS for the important and critical work they do in our regions.