By KEVIN ANDERSON
Recently, the special commission of inquiry in healthcare funding visited Tamworth to hear directly from local health professionals in regard to the funding shortfalls in our health system.
My message to the inquiry was clear, now is the time to boost incentives, and ensure that our workforce needs are met now and into the future.
The new Gunnedah Hospital will need a much bigger workforce and that means more doctors, nurses, midwives, specialists, and allied health professionals.
Bringing locums to our regional areas can be an expensive exercise so the government needs to be innovative in the way it recruits and retains locally based specialists to ensure continuity of care and reduce the reliance on expensive locums.
We pushed hard while in government to upgrade our facilities, but we need the workforce to match, and that’s what I’ll be focusing on.
The government just announced an increase in incentives to bring more midwives to regional areas like Gunnedah, but more can be done, and I’ll continue to meet with local health professionals to see what more I can do to support them.
This past Sunday was also a very special day for our police force.
Each year, on September 29, police across Australia pause to honour their fallen colleagues as part of National Police Remembrance Day.
Police are the front line when it comes to preventing crime, keeping the community safe, and supporting our community through some of the most difficult experiences of our lives.
It’s an extraordinarily difficult job, but one that police also find extremely rewarding.
We honour and respect our police because the work they do can be dangerous. They run towards dangerous situations, while we are safe in our homes.
According to Safe Work Australia, police are three times more likely to experience workplace injury when compared to the national average for occupational injuries.
It’s a sobering statistic and a reminder of the dangers police face in their service.
On Friday, September 27, the Oxley Police District held their remembrance service at St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Tamworth.
It’s an opportunity for serving and retired police to honour their fallen colleagues, and for us as a community to thank our police for their continued service.
We thank the men and women of the NSW Police Force for the incredible work they do and we support them in their work to keep our communities safe.
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