The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) acknowledges the Federal Government’s continued investment in hospitals, Medicare and workforce training, while warning the Federal Budget lacks targeted measures to address the growing and urgent challenges facing rural and remote communities.
ACRRM President Dr Rod Martin welcomed the Government’s earlier investment in Rural Generalist training, including additional places on the ACRRM Rural Generalist Fellowship program.
“Investment in Rural Generalist training is essential to strengthening healthcare access for rural and remote communities. However, ACRRM will continue to advocate for 500 training places to meet community and workforce need,” Dr Martin says.
Dr Martin says the Budget includes significant investment in hospitals, Medicare and Urgent Care Clinics, but there remains limited focus on the long-term sustainability of rural healthcare services and workforce retention.
The Government has announced an additional $25 billion for state and territory hospitals, bringing total hospital funding to $220.3 billion over five years.
“It is critical this investment reaches rural, regional and remote hospitals and services already operating under significant workforce and infrastructure pressure,” he says.
“Rural hospitals and health services are under enormous strain, often relying on small teams of Rural Generalists delivering care across emergency medicine, primary care, inpatient care and procedural services.”
Dr Martin also acknowledged the Government’s $1.8 billion investment to secure Medicare Urgent Care Clinics as a permanent feature of the health system but warned rural communities risk once again being left behind.
“The Government says four in five Australians will live within 20 minutes of an Urgent Care Clinic, but what about the one in five Australians living well beyond those limits?” he says.
“Many of those Australians live in rural and remote communities and continue to experience significant Medicare underspend.
“Rural and remote Australians already face significant barriers to care, and this investment risks reinforcing a two-tiered system where metropolitan patients benefit while rural and remote communities fall further behind.
“While this continues to happen, rural, remote and First Nations people will continue to experience poorer health outcomes and die younger from preventable causes than people living in major cities.
“Rural Generalists are already delivering urgent care every day, often as the only doctor in town, across general practice, hospitals and emergency settings.”
Dr Martin says there remains little in the Budget specifically targeted at rural communities, including workforce retention, housing, supervision support and the long-term sustainability of small rural practices that cannot rely solely on Medicare bulk billing in the same way as larger metropolitan practices.
“For many rural Australians, access to healthcare is not just about affordability — it is about whether a service exists locally at all,” he says.
“In rural and remote Australia, the issue is often not how long you wait to see a doctor in emergency — it is whether you can see a doctor at all.
“Too many services, particularly maternity services, are teetering on the brink. “One more setback and they may be lost, often permanently.
“For a fraction of the funding committed to Urgent Care Clinics and Medicare initiatives, a coordinated plan to preserve vulnerable rural services could have been delivered.
“Any investment in training must be matched with retention and community support measures if rural and remote communities are to see lasting improvements in healthcare access.”