Community Alliance Party

Speech to Health Care Consumers Association, 24 September 2008.
Contact: Roger Nicoll |

Thank you again to all of you for the opportunity to take part in this forum tonight.

Let me start by saying the ACT is facing a health crisis. We already have a health crisis and with the ageing of our population its going to get worse – much worse unless we make some major changes to the way that things are being done – starting now!!

How severe is this crisis? The health report in the latest ACT State of Environment Report 2007/8 provides some sobering facts and statistics for the ACT:

• serious GP shortages with GP rates well below the national average
• the lowest bulk-billing rates in the country (federal electorate)
• the highest proportion of people with long-term conditions – 79% of our population
• the highest rate of long-term mental health conditions as well as eye, circulatory, respiratory and urinary system diseases
• increasing proportions of people who are overweight, obese or acquiring diabetes
• proportionally more of our population with some risk from alcohol consumption
• low consumption of vegetables (the worst result nationally) and insufficient intake of fruit
• just over half of the ACT population is not exercising in line with national guidelines
• infant mortality and perinatal death rates here are higher than the national average

When you put all that together with our ageing population, we can see that irrespective of the current high life expectancies - there is a health time bomb ticking way and our government’s need to do a lot more to combat this.

Just before I talk about some of the Community Alliance’s ideas for addressing these problems, I would like to tell you a bit more about who I am and how I fit into the health picture

I have lived in Canberra for the past 40 years and have been very actively involved in community life. I am a communications consultant and writer by profession and have represented the ACT and Australia in orienteering some years back.

While helping to raise a family I have been involved in a number of grassroots community organisations including the local P&C, Neighbourhood Watch, Belwest soccer and other sporting clubs. I have seen first hand the health and wellbeing benefits of close and connected communities. I have seen first hand the health, social and environmental impacts of breaking-up communities through the recent school closures.

The great value of early intervention and preventative health approaches became clear to me while working as a volunteer community parent with West Belconnen Good Beginnings and as the founder of the Legends – Men N Kids program, and community youth work.

But the role in which some of you may associate me is as Chair for the past four years of the West Belconnen Health Cooperative and the predecessor group - the West Belconnen Community Health Committee. Now that I am running as a candidate in Ginninderra, I have stood aside from the Chair position but am happy to talk more about the cooperative model as it is highly relevant to many of the key issues raised by your members for tonight’s discussion.

The health cooperative is an innovative community-based but still GP centred approach that has been thoroughly developed and feasibility tested, for West Belconnen, over the past four years.

With yesterday’s joint Federal/ACT funding announcement, three parties, including the Community Alliance Party have now committed to fully funding the amount still need for start-up infrastructure.

The West Belconnen Health Cooperative plans to introduce not-for profit bulk-billed GPs, nurse practitioner and preventative health services within a ‘one-stop’ health and wellbeing centre supported by community, business and government.

A similar venture, the Westgate Health Cooperative has successfully serviced Melbourne’s western suburbs for the past 20 years.

The strength of the cooperative is it provides easy access and a community focal point that encourages people to be active in their health and wellbeing.

It harnesses the resources of all sectors as a way of meeting the growing health needs at a low recurrent cost to government and taxpayers. The Cooperative is self-sustaining once infrastructure costs are met. Other key features are it:

• delivers quality family care and a holistic, preventative approach
• is particularly relevant to disadvantaged and under-serviced communities
• brings affordable medical and health services to where they are needed most
• includes health promotion, family and Indigenous support, mental health support and allied health services
• has coordinated management through a Cooperative with strong governance structure
• relieves GPs of administrative and management load and helps transfer tasks to nurse practioners or co-located health and wellbeing service providers
• adds to ACT GP workforce through attractive work conditions, salary and social model
• complements other local businesses including the nearest medical practices.

The Community Alliance Party earlier today announced that health cooperatives like this would be one of the flagships of a community-driven preventative health approach that we would hope to introduce to the next ACT government. This approach is complementary to current infrastructure funding but would help increase the ACT's emphasis on preventing problems before they become serious and expensive to fix.

Community participation, cooperation, early intervention and prevention are at the heart of this new approach. We believe such an approach is necessary because of the failure of successive governments to address the deepening health crisis

Key initiatives under the Community Alliance's preventative care approach are:

• seed funding for four co-operative health and wellbeing centres - one in Belconnen, one in Tuggeranong, one in Gungahlin and one other.
• a series of preventative health initiatives, including programs to:
• increase child, family and adult intake and enjoyment of fruit an vegetables including providing a piece of fruit per day for primary school children
• increase walking and cycling to tackle obesity and environmental impact of the drive-to school culture
• provide accessible health and lifestyle check-ups for men – with checks ‘pit stop’ style out in the community where they are needed most – and separately for women
• provide revamped family and parenting classes coinciding with pre-natal exercise classes and follow-up meetings three months after birth – facilitating stronger families in the important period surrounding childbirth
• offer parenting support, life balance and budgeting advice.

The Community Alliance policy is a plan for wellness and nipping problems in the bud so that more Canberrans can be healthy more of the time

It is a plan that increases the availability of GP services in high-needs area of the ACT while improving the work environment and conditions for GPs.

The Community Alliance plan keeps GPs at the centre of Primary Care model but will help alleviate the pressure on GPs by enabling nurse practitioners and co-located allied health providers to contribute to the holistic patient care.

It is also a plan for reducing future need of the high-cost acute care that is putting an increasing drain on the ACT hospital system and its overall finances.

Thank you again and I look forward to any questions that you may have.