Greg Jericho

From Andrew Gee: “The rural doctor shortage crisis is devastating for Calare residents. Country people have shorter life expectancies than city people. It’s outrageous. The Charles Sturt University School of Rural Medicine opened five years ago to train doctors in the bush for practice in the bush, with 37 Commonwealth supported students. It hasn’t been given any more student places since. When will your government take effective action to a fix? The rural doctor shortage crisis?”

This is a very big issue and one we have looked at in the past. Last year Matt Grudnoff noted that “Research shows people living in rural areas have a much lower life expectancy”

He wrote that life expectancy falls even more for people who live in electorates outside the capital cities.

In electorates where the majority of people live in major regional cities life expectancy falls by more than a year (1.1) compared with outer metro electorates. In rural electorates the results are even worse. Almost half a year (0.4) lower than provincial electorates.

This means that those in inner metro electorates can expect to live on average 2.3 years longer than there fellow Australians in rural electorates.

But this is more than just about the distance from healthcare services. This is about rich and poor. In South Australia the relatively wealthy rural electorate of Mayo has an average life expectancy of 84.5 years, while the relatively poor outer metro electorate of Spence has a life expectancy 4 years lower than that at 80.5 years.

It is even worse for indigenous Australians. The Northern Territory electorate of Lingiari, which has the highest proportion of indigenous Australians, has the lowest average life expectancy at just 75.5 years.