Armidale local Maria Hitchcock says it is not up to the Regional Minister for Health Bronnie Taylor to decide whether or not New England needs a locally-based health district.
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Her comments came after the minister dismissed the need to split the health service, while she toured Armidale, Glen Innes and Inverell on Wednesday, listening to nurses, doctors, key stakeholders and others about their concerns in relation to staffing and other issues in the health sector.
Mrs Hitchcock is the convener and founder of New England Visions 2030 institute, which started a petition to have the NSW Parliament debate splitting the health service into two regions.
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Ms Taylor acknowledged the enormous size of the New England Health District having to serve such a huge area, saying it had its own challenges as a result.
"But in the world we live in today, to say that you have to be based in one place is not where we are as a society or a culture anymore," Ms Taylor said.
Ms Taylor said the use of technologies such as Zoom during Covid had proven that admin tasks could be done even when someone was located four hours away.
"I am also realistic. I am also someone who has worked in the health system and I want to find solutions to what is going on on the ground," Ms Taylor said.
"And those solutions are clinical face-to-face solutions at this stage, not bureaucratic solutions."
Ms Taylor announced she would be looking at a plan trialed in the Murumbidgee health district that could see supervised junior GPs located in hospitals, to make up for the shortfall in the region.
But Mrs Hitchock, founder of the health petition gathering 10,000 signatures so the split of the NEHD can be looked at in the NSW state parliament, said the amalgamation of the health district was "not working".
"We've seen and heard many reports that Newcastle has not been dealing with the regions fairly," Ms Hitchcock said.
"We've not had our fair share of resources, in fact, we've had resources stripped from the regions and sent to Newcastle."
Ms Hitchcock said the two-week old petition is expected to gather more than the 10,000 signatures by September 30 in order to force the debate in parliament.
"We used to have a rural area health service that knew what the needs of rural people were. That is what we want a return to," she said.
"We don't want people in a metropolitan area making the call for people in the smaller regions. I don't care how good the technology is, the technology is only as good as the people using it, and often it fails."
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