A new threat to rural Queenslanders?

These vital medical facilities help keep residents in rural towns and they attract professionals and younger families to settle there because of those services. Transport of patients over large distances to the nearest hospital would also create major problems.

There are several councils in rural and regional Queensland that have already taken action to hold their communities together when essential services were under threat. Councils have stepped out of the “normal” or “core” range of local government services to get involved with non-core services that have been withdrawn by other levels of government or private enterprise.

It is an insidious form of cost shifting - where local councils take on a role in providing services (like medical, banking, postal, commercial and educational services) simply to maintain a standard of living that will retain or enhance the viability of their communities.

A case in point is Kingaroy Shire Council, which a few years ago stepped in to maintain choice and breadth of medical services. The imminent retirement of the resident general surgeon and the uncertain future of St Aubyn’s Private Hospital threatened a continuing system of general surgery in Kingaroy.

The Kingaroy & South Burnett Medical Workforce Strategy was developed, focusing on increasing and stabilising the supply of general practitioners and specialists in the community.

The strategy required a decision on the future of the private hospital. Council took the initiative and purchased the private hospital (34 beds) which had closed, and now employs a management company to manage and report on daily operations. Funding was accessed to assist with the initial operating costs. Now it is locally owned, has a full complement of staff, and provides local employment and economic benefits to the region.

The reopening of the private hospital and its services has overcome the shortfall in medical services experienced since its closure (especially, but not only, to holders of private health insurance) and is helping to provide the service necessary for a regional centre.

It does not take a great deal of imagination to predict that closures of one-doctor state hospitals in small country towns across Queensland would see more councils forced down the same path.

There are many examples of the local councils currently doing the job of either the State Government or private enterprise in subsidising (propping up) medical practices and services in country towns.

Local government simply cannot support the model proposed by Mr Morris because it fails to address the community needs and expectations that there will be access to quality clinical services in their community.

It would be a great pity if an off-hand, knee-jerk reaction to the dysfunctional bureaucracy that is Queensland Health, was the reduction of medical services in the bush - resulting in a gigantic shifting of costs to local communities that struggle to remain viable at present.