On Saturday, this masthead revealed secret Labor government plans would potentially consolidate Victoria’sAnti-amalgamation signs near Mansfield Hospital.A day earlier, there were reports that despite large overall increases in funding for Victorian hospitals, at least 20 small rural hospitals have already been advised to expect funding cuts of up to 30 per cent through the 2024-25 financial year.
Melburnians may think that people in regional Victoria are not as sophisticated as their metropolitan cousins. But I can assure you, we are not fools. We can smell a dead rat. We know when something is off. Regional Victorians understand – arguably much better than our urban counterparts – that the most powerful means of guaranteeing the delivery of services closer to home is to retain local boards and local leadership within local hospitals.Without local leadership, cash-strapped networks, headquartered one to two hours away from small regional communities, will progressively concentrate funding at major regional campuses in the interests of “increased efficiency”.
More regional Victorians will also become aware of what some of us already know, which is the damning findings of reduced access to health services and general practitioners in smaller regional communities in NSW that resulted from the consolidation of health services into Local Health Districts.