The College calls on the nation’s policy makers to pay serious attention to a new report showing rural and remote Australians continue to receive far less of the national healthcare spend than their counterparts in cities.
The ”Evidence base for additional investment in rural health in Australia” report released this month by the National Rural Health Alliance shows Australia’s governments spend $848 less per person per year on people living outside major cities than those who do. At the same time, people in rural and remote areas including people in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities on average have lower socioeconomic status, record poorer health outcomes, and face greater practical obstacles to accessing services due to remoteness.
The report findings are consistent with previous measures of the rural-urban health funding divide but show this gap has substantially widened over the past decade. Healthcare spending rose overall from 2010-2021, however funding directed to major cities increased by 164% while funding to rural areas increased by 130% and to remote areas by only 105%.
The report shows that it would take an injection of an additional $6.5b in health expenditure to bring funding to rural people to nominal parity with their urban counterparts. This figure would not however give any consideration to rural and remote people’s higher healthcare needs nor the increased cost of rural health service.
It will come as no surprise to ACRRM members that their patients and communities do not enjoy comparable funding toward their healthcare to their urban counterparts. The report will however be a valuable tool in advocating to address this inequity to funding bodies and decision makers. ACRRM commends the National Rural Health Alliance of which it is a member for this important initiative.
The ”Evidence base for additional investment in rural health in Australia” report released this month by the National Rural Health Alliance shows Australia’s governments spend $848 less per person per year on people living outside major cities than those who do. At the same time, people in rural and remote areas including people in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities on average have lower socioeconomic status, record poorer health outcomes, and face greater practical obstacles to accessing services due to remoteness.
The report findings are consistent with previous measures of the rural-urban health funding divide but show this gap has substantially widened over the past decade. Healthcare spending rose overall from 2010-2021, however funding directed to major cities increased by 164% while funding to rural areas increased by 130% and to remote areas by only 105%.
The report shows that it would take an injection of an additional $6.5b in health expenditure to bring funding to rural people to nominal parity with their urban counterparts. This figure would not however give any consideration to rural and remote people’s higher healthcare needs nor the increased cost of rural health service.
It will come as no surprise to ACRRM members that their patients and communities do not enjoy comparable funding toward their healthcare to their urban counterparts. The report will however be a valuable tool in advocating to address this inequity to funding bodies and decision makers. ACRRM commends the National Rural Health Alliance of which it is a member for this important initiative.