LIMESTONE COAST DENIED AGAIN BY LABOR

The Limestone Coast community have been told by their State Government and their Local Health Network that all people are equal, but some are more equal than others.

The Limestone Coast Local Health Network, now Chaired by Adelaide Orthopaedic Surgeon Andrew Saies, has determined that a radiation treatment service based in the Limestone Coast is “not a safe, sustainable, or financially viable option” for our community.

This is despite regional residents of Albany, Mildura, Griffith, Burnie, Bundaberg and many other regional locations having access to radiation treatment without having to travel vast distances to a capital city.

Limestone Coast residents will continue to be required to travel to Adelaide or Warnambool for radiation treatment. Despite the Limestone Coast Local Health Network (LCLHN) insisting that the service being offered in Warnambool is not ‘best practice’ and therefore not a model of service they are willing to replicate for the Limestone Coast because “patient safety and clinical care must be our priority” the LCLHN is more than happy to continue sending patients to Warnambool to receive treatment. 

It is an outrage that South Australia is the only state that does not have a regional radiation treatment service and it’s holding back health outcomes for our community.

There are three private service providers standing ready to provide a service in the Limestone Coast as they do in dozens of regional locations across the Country.

Minister Picton and his bureaucracy must stop treating regional South Australia with such contempt and start listening to what the community want and need.

20,000 people signed a petition calling on the State Government to make radiation treatment available locally. For the State Government to ignore these calls on the basis that other comparative regional services in other States and Territories are not clinically safe or financially viable is simply ridiculous. 

I’ve been fighting for radiation treatment for the Limestone Coast for over five years and I’m willing to keep fighting until this service is delivered because the excuses I’ve been given to date are simply not plausible.

The Limestone Coast deserves better.