THE CHAIR of the Orange City Council's Health Liaison Community Committee has described the recommendations of a recent report into regional, rural and remote health as "common sense".
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Councillor Steve Peterson is in the unique position of being a patient and an employee of the health system in his role as a Telehealth doctor. He is also quadriplegic.
"It's just common sense stuff," Dr Peterson said, referring to the Parliamentary inquiry's 44 recommendations suggesting a complete overhaul of the health services for regional, remote and rural communities.
"We're the tertiary or base hospital so we have to have the resources to cover that."
- Councillor Steve Peterson
"I'm both a patient and a doctor who does the rural health telehealth work - we would love for more resources and on-the-ground services," he said.
"It's important to have a back up plan for what we do when those [on the ground] services are not available and telehealth can hopefully support the doctors and services that are there, to help them stay longer.
"But yes, it wouldn't be appropriate to replace them."
Former mayor Reg Kidd, who established the Health Liaison Committee said there was a vast difference between regional health and rural and remote health and that Orange's health services were a hub for rural and remote communities.
He said many regional services, such as those in Orange are "quite good" with people from rural and remote communities depending on them.
"I haven't read the whole report but the needs and challenges that Orange has is much different to smaller towns," Cr Peterson said.
"Orange does pretty well in terms of health services but for those smaller towns it is very hard and that's where the effort needs to go.
"But Orange serves those areas. We're the tertiary or base hospital so we have to have the resources to cover that."
The 300-page report titled Health outcomes and access to health and hospital services in rural, regional and remote NSW, was released last week and painted a picture of a system in crisis, concluding patients in these areas have a greater chance of premature death than their metropolitan counterparts.
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